Sanctity

by S. M. Bowles

  “Do you know where Charlie is now? Is he alright?”

  “No, I don’t know Elayna. I went to the hotel we sent him to and tried to find him but I think he may have gone home,” Michael bit his lip, “I think he remembers; I think he remembers everything. “Victor,” I saw a flash of pain and sorrow in his eyes and reached out to take his hand, “Victor must not have been strong enough to make him forget.”

  “We have to find him, Michael. We need to make him understand. I have to apologize.”

  Michael was shaking his head. I felt like there was something he wanted to tell me, to confess but he carefully avoided my questioning eyes. “You can’t leave, not right away. You’ll need to rest; to rest during the daytime and this is the safest place for that right now.”

  “Oh, yes, this morning. I remember I couldn’t breathe and the world looked on fire,” I frowned, “but you were fine. Why is it different for you than it is for me?”

  “Do you remember the night when Gavin and Victor…”

  I stopped him short, unwilling to hear about my parents, “Yes, Michael. I will never forget that night again.”

  “I think Gavin, his blood; I think it did something to me. Since then the sunlight hasn’t bothered me very much. It is uncomfortable if I am in it for too long but I don’t think it’s deadly. As time goes by I think I am able to tolerate it more and more. I hope you will, too.”

  “Hmm,” I sighed. “Do you think you could find Charlie and bring him here?”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  Michael hesitated several moments before he answered, “Elayna, I did something. At the time I thought it was for the best but now I’m not so sure.”

  “What is it Michael? You can tell me, you can tell me anything.”

  “I...I…You know Charlie has always loved you. You know that, right?”

  I knew it but I didn’t want to admit it after realizing that I never loved him nearly as much as he loved me. He was my dearest friend but my heart had not been my own, not since I was a little girl, “Yes Michael, I know, I have always known how Charlie felt about me.”

  “I…I asked him to take care of you. I promised him that if he loved you, if he could make you happy that I would let you go; that I would never interfere with you or your life again.”

  “But Michael, how could you…”

  “And I made him promise that if I let you go he would share with me all your happy memories, the ones I would no longer be a part of.”

  “Michael!” I covered my mouth. Suddenly I remembered the dream, chasing after the thread, winding it around and round and ultimately having it ripped away from me. “You left me, that’s right. You tried…you tried…and Kaley and Margaret, they stopped you and I was…I thought I was…”

  Michael was shaking his head his eyes full of regret, “I could never forgive myself for hurting you. Charlie saw me, that night, the night of the formal. He followed you home after I left you at the restaurant. He wanted to make sure you were alright. He saw me when I climbed up to your bedroom and again when I jumped back down. He knew what I was, he could see it, I couldn’t hide it from him. I wanted to kill him right then and there for loving you! I did! Because that is when I realized that I couldn’t give you the life that he could.”

  “Michael,” I whispered.

  “No, I would never, never have done it,” Michael buried his face in his hands. “Instead, I told him everything, everything that you had been through and how important you were to me and why I needed him to be a part of your life. I thought you would be happy together; all I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. After all that I had done; I could never make up for any of it. You deserved better, you deserved someone like Charlie. He would die for you; he nearly did.”

  I was awestruck. I never knew any of this. The guilt was overwhelming. I couldn’t imagine what Charlie must have been going through. I remembered all those things Charlie had to do and suddenly knew exactly what they were and why he disliked them so very much. He must have been visiting Michael all those years and sharing our life with him.

  “Oh,” I moaned, “We have to try Michael. We have to try and find Charlie and make this right.”

  Something was happening to me. Michael was looking me over curiously.

  “What is it Michael?” As I asked, though, I realized what was happening. I felt my veins constrict, like they were shrinking in on themselves. “Oh, that’s awful,” I started rubbing at my arms trying to alleviate the sensation.

  Michael took my hand and stood me up. He led me to the kitchen and took a small paring knife from its block on the counter. He glided the knife across his wrist and though I was appalled by the idea the scent of his blood coursed through my nose and I instinctively reached for his arm.

  “Hurry,” he said, “I will heal quickly, if you don’t hurry.”

  I hesitantly put my lips around the incision he made and forced the thought of what I was doing from my mind. It was incomprehensible, cannibalistic and yet it was so good. I felt the pressure in my veins easing and somehow knew that it was enough and I needed to stop. I slowly pulled myself away and twisted my head to gaze up at Michael.

  He was standing impossibly still, like a statue and his eyes were lifted skyward. His mouth was slightly open and there was the unmistakable expression of ecstasy on his face.

  “Michael?” I whispered.

  He was so still that I started to wonder if he heard me call his name. He slowly lowered his gaze to mine and it was as though he was suddenly swept back to the moment, “Oh,” he said, “that was unexpected. I can’t tell you how good that felt,” he looked deliriously happy.

  “Really?”

  “I don’t know why but I think that may have been the most…” he searched for a word, “intimate sensation I have ever felt.”

  I giggled, “Okaaay, I’m not sure what to say to that.”

  He just smiled, “Don’t say anything,” and kissed me.

  When he pulled back there was a wondrous smile on his lips. It was like an undeniable invitation. He took my face in his hands and kissed me again ever so gently. Every nerve in my lips was stimulated and I nearly gasped at the sensuousness of so simple an act. Michael was grinning playfully. I couldn’t help asking, “Will it always feel so, so...”

  “Intense?” Michael suggested.

  “Yes, I can’t tell you,” I shook my head.

  He kissed me again, “When you are strong it will.”

  “Strong?”

  “If you don’t…feed,” he mumbled obviously uncomfortable with the idea of the unfortunate necessity, “your senses won’t be so heightened.”

  “Oh,” I whispered and tucked the thought away unwilling to let it spoil the moment. “Kiss me again.”

  He did and I could feel his desires coupled with mine. It was as though my yearning had been doubled and our needs were a singular thought that neither could ignore. I stood up unable to curb the thrill I felt from the caress of his lips against mine. For a moment I was torn, I remembered and regretted the times with Victor and wondered how Michael could ever forgive me.

  “Don’t think like that,” he whispered, “Your regrets are nothing compared to the ones I have.”

  I involuntarily thought of Brenda.

  “Yes, and countless oth…”

  I put my finger over his lips, “We will forgive each other and we will never be those people again.”

  He scooped me up and carried me to the bedroom.

  “Oh,” I whispered as he gently set me down, “I know this,” I ran my fingers over the dense fabric of the bedspread.

  “How could you, you’ve never been here.”

  “But I’ve dreamt of it, of you, Michael, here, resting here.”

  “Do you dream of me often,” he teased.

  “Michael, you are always in my dreams,” I reached up and brought him down beside me.

  As we lay side by side he slid my dress
up over my head. It was in ruins from the flare and I didn’t understand why Michael was being so gentle as he eased it off but maybe it was just to preserve the moment.

  He looked away as he shoved it towards the edge of the bed and when he turned back he made a little gasp of surprise. When I looked down to see what had caught his attention I noticed the scar in the middle of my chest. It was very faint, almost like a birthmark. It must have been from the flare which I thought was nothing unusual, wounds like the one I received inevitably left scars.

  “But not as you are now, it should have healed.”

  “It did heal.”

  “Not completely.”

  “Is it ugly, do you not like it?”

  “No, it’s not that, it’s…well you can’t see it from your perspective. Here,” he handed me out of the bed and stood me in front of the mirror.

  It was very faint and I doubted anyone would ever notice it but I could see the outline. It was about two inches in diameter and looked very much like a peace symbol and even odder still there were little shoots coming off it like a paint splatter that made the symbol look like it was resting in the middle of a heart.

  “Huh, well if that isn’t the oddest scar ever!”

  Michael nipped his finger, “Maybe this will work.”

  “No,” I curled his finger away, “I want to keep it, to remind me of everything we have been through. It will help us to remember the people we have lost and how much we loved them. It will give us hope that despite it all we can still find peace.”

  “I love you,” that was all he needed to say to revive the moment.

  I always knew there was more to lovemaking than the physical but other than the first few times I had never felt the emotional union. This time was different even than those. I felt so connected like our hearts and bodies were striving toward the same objective. He was telling me how he loved me with image after image, pouring his thoughts into mine and my mind was taking it all in and sending back a reciprocating series of my own loving declarations. I could feel our connection, that phantom tendril reaching out to us twisting and turning and binding us to one another, weaving us together.

  Our lips found the vital position on one another’s necks as an unimaginable ecstasy coursed through our bodies and time seemed to stand still. The delirium slowly subsided and we withdrew from one another. He was holding my face staring into my eyes; I was crying from the overwhelming joy I felt.

  “I love you,” I crushed him to my chest. “I can never be away from you again.”

  “That may be the one thing that would be the death of me,” he softly said as his lips rested against my ear. He pulled back and kissed me.

  The minutes ticked by.

  “You’re right; we have to fix things with Charlie,” he kissed my temple. “If we plan it carefully enough we can go home in a day or two. I’ll have to arrange a place for you to stay first.”

  “Thank you, Michael. Thank you for understanding.”

  Chapter 25

  It was three days later before we were ready to leave. Michael contacted Margaret and had her arrange for a contractor to convert one of the bedrooms in his house into a darkroom. It was painful to watch him tell her how important the work was and that it needed to be done to his exact specifications. Though he never said it outright, I’m sure it was understood that he wasn’t picking up a new hobby and that the room was for me. I felt a great deal of uneasiness and regret and hoped that she wouldn’t blame Michael for how things had turned out as I watched him pacing the floor and relaying his instructions.

  I knew he would have preferred to go himself and oversee the work but he refused to leave me alone. “It’s too soon, Elayna, it could be dangerous for you. We don’t know how this is going to go for you; whether you will have the self-control to live within certain…” he took a deep breath, “boundaries.”

  I started to interject, “But we will never know if we never try.”

  “No!” he insisted. “I will take care of you. I won’t let you make the kinds of mistakes that I have made. I couldn’t live with myself if anything so…so regrettable should happen.”

  I knew what he meant; that he didn’t want me to risk hurting anyone especially since in his mind it was completely avoidable. He carefully kept me from knowing the full truth but I suspected that he went out before I would wake and take care of this unfortunate necessity. He seemed determined to keep me from witnessing it or being a part of it in any way. It was always very personal and very intimate when he shared himself with me afterwards.

  I sometimes felt a pang of guilt when I had to use him this way but he wouldn’t budge on the matter. I tried not to let it bother me and I was so overwhelmed with being able to love one another openly that I was, for the most part, able to push it to the corner of my mind.

  Over the nights that were wholly ours before we took our flight home Michael and I were like any other new lovers. We went to the movies and strolled hand in hand; he brought me flowers and whispered sweet-nothings to me whenever the mood struck him. He was hopelessly romantic and told me on our first night together that he had always dreamed of courting me.

  “Courting,” I teased him, “how old fashioned!”

  “Not the way I’ll do it. I am going to spend every night from now until forever winning your heart.”

  Though I was sure he knew he already had it, I ran a skeptical eye over him and he responded to the challenge in my expression.

  I had just woken up and he held his hand out to me and tugged me to standing. He gently stripped me from my clothes and scooped me up. He carried me from the panic room and down the hallway to the bathroom. It was shimmering in the soft glow of a hundred candles; all notably enclosed in glass. There was a soft symphony playing in the background and the bath was drawn; it beckoned with a glossy coating of bubbles and scented oil.

  Michael set me on the edge of the tub and kissed me. He drew his t-shirt over his head and shimmied out of his pants before picking me back up and gently settling me into the heady water. He glided in opposite me and sighed.

  “Ah,” he whispered. “This is one of my favorite imaginings,” he gathered up one of my feet and massaged it with smooth, firm strokes. After a few minutes he kissed my big toe and put that foot aside before gathering up the other.

  I was grinning from ear to ear as he finished up with the second foot, “You’d better be careful, I could get used to this. Think of all the years you’re indenturing yourself to.”

  “I have thought of them, many, many times and I have something planned for every one of them,” he swam across the tub to me.

  He was impossible to resist and I savored every moment. When it was over the minutes ticked by. We slowly regained our composure then Michael brushed me with a quick kiss and stepped from the bath. He hastily showered then handed me out of the tub so I could do the same. While I washed and rinsed he stepped away to get dressed then returned as I finished up. He carefully extinguished the candles as I wrapped myself in his robe then he motioned me toward the bedroom.

  He had bought a couple of outfits for me and laid them out on the bed. Since he looked quite casual, I chose my outfit along the same lines. Once I was dressed I headed back to the bathroom to fix my hair and so forth. I didn’t realize it but it was the first time that I had looked at myself in the mirror since Michael brought me there. At first I was not even sure it was me. I studied myself turning my head from left to right and back again.

  The changes were subtle but significant. I felt like I had never really seen myself until that very moment. Michael came and stood behind me and as I gazed at our reflections I wondered how we would ever go unnoticed with such an ethereal appearance.

  “People see what they want to see and nothing more. Look how beautiful you are,” he whispered as he stroked my arm. My stomach did an excited little flip as he touched me. “Come let’s go out for a bit,” he found my fingers and wrapped them in his.

  He turned me away fro
m our reflections and ushered me down the hallway. He paused at a nearby closet and took two leather jackets from within. He handed one to me and I shrugged myself into it. As he smiled I couldn’t help noticing the roguish expression in his eyes and wondered what he was up to. Michael opened a door at the end and flipped the light switch. It led to the garage and there was a small arsenal of cars collected within. We wound our way between the cars and as we neared the far wall came to a row of motorcycles.

  “I know how much you loved your first ride, are you up for a second?” he entered a code into a nearby keypad and the garage door opened letting in the sultry night air. Michael took a helmet from one of the shelves and handed me one as well. He grabbed a set of keys from a pegboard fastened to the wall and walked up to a lumbering, black brute of a motorcycle, “What do you say?” He straddled the bike.

  When he started the motorcycle it emitted a thunderous bellow which seemed doubly loud since it was still in the garage. I could feel the sound vibrating through the floor as he revved the motorcycle once or twice before wheeling it out into the driveway. He grinned as he cocked his head motioning me to hop on. I happily trotted to where he was waiting and sidled up behind him. As I wrapped my arms around his waist he pulled them tighter and kicked the bike into gear.

  I remembered our first ride and how frightened I was at how fast we were traveling. It was on my 9th birthday; a special gift and one of our many nighttime adventures. In my mind it was my favorite present and I cherished the memory for months on end and always wished for another opportunity. We rumbled along and drifted through the streets at an easy pace. Whenever he was not shifting or braking he placed his hand on my knee and I could feel all over again the happy serenity I felt all those years ago.