Shared Redemption

by Michel Prince

  “You did something didn’t you?” I asked.

  “Oops. She was talking again.” Zarmina said as she held her head by the helmet. “Such intimate details she is offering you. One would think she loves you, too.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “It’s only seven years. And who’s to say I will be around at the next compound to remind you of what you gave up.”

  “She was never mine.”

  “That’s one opinion.”

  Zarmina turned and bounced down the stairs to join Lars.

  Kiri’s voice flowed out of the helmet and I ran to my room. I lay on my bed and listened. Kiri talked about her mom. How her mom raised her mostly on her own and finally about the sickness that overtook her mom’s body and mind.

  “Do you think she’s Frozen somewhere? You never said if all suicides are asked to join. You’d think some people would get a pass. The ones who didn’t just throw away their lives. I’m sorry. I don’t know why you did it. The scars on your back would’ve been enough for me to do it.

  “I was so excited when I earned a scholarship for track, but since my mother got sick I couldn’t go to Baylor so I had to work through college too,” Kiri explained. “I’d been running track since I was ten and still threw up at Nationals before my race.”

  I heard her sigh and move around.

  “You know this wasn’t the first time I hurt my leg. Nope, not even close. The worst was when I snapped my Achilles tendon. Sadly it was two months into my training for the Olympic trials. I was a long shot, I’d ran enough at the D-one level to know that, but still, it would have been nice to at least try.”

  She became quiet for so long I thought the connection was broken until she told me about the men she’d been with. It seemed there were quite a few and the disease she got from doing that couldn’t be traced from one night. Then she surprised me. Talking about how it helped her focus on what she wanted out of life and the obstacles in her way.

  “It made me realize how reckless I had been. I don’t know if you can even hear me now, but if you can, please know I’m not that person anymore. Haven’t been since I got my results. Making out that list and calling all my partners was so humbling. The worst part is I didn’t have names for all of them. Guy at Spago, Alpha Omega guy, and Blond guy with blue-tipped hair. Not easy to Google them. I guess it’s better you left. You come from a different time. A time when women like me were probably burned at the stake for being a whore.”

  I felt an ache in my heart for her sadness. She’d been looking for someone to make a connection with and had found so many, but never really connected. How was that possible? Then I felt rage. No. Not rage. Jealousy. Jealousy was coursing through my body.

  “If you were here, I wonder if you’d give me a blast of cold. If I could do that, I would. Shame makes you cold, right? I am ashamed. Of what I have done, but more because since I met you, once I was sure you weren’t gonna kill me, I thought of what it would have been like to be with just one man. You know, save my virginity as if it had meaning. Would I wonder what others felt like or would I be happy knowing I’d given the most important part of me to just you? I mean one person. I didn’t mean you…Who am I kidding? You’re not even listening. I meant you. Will I forget you? Do you have some potion or spell to make the last few days escape my memory? As much pain as I’m in right now, I don’t want it to go away. It’s the first time I’ve felt it. The pain of loss. I felt it with my mother, but it wasn’t the same. Maybe you’re right. If I could feel it once, I can feel it again, right? Or do we just get one person and you’re mine? That’d suck. Not you being my one person. Well, not if you wanted me, then that’d be cool. I’m just rambling now in hopes you’ll cough or shift in your helmet and let me know you can hear me. That you are listening. Nye, if you’re…”

  A knock at my door startled me. I quickly removed the helmet and hid it on the floor besides my bed. “Yeah?” I jumped up and opened the door.

  “Nye, Zarmina sent me here,” explained Lars, looking annoyed to be there.

  “I’m fine. Really. I was reading and going to sleep.”

  “She’s afraid of you sleeping.”

  “Why?”

  “We both know why.”

  “You know letting Kiri go is for her benefit, not mine. Isn’t there a part of you that feels guilty for locking Zarmina into this world?”

  “The second she complains about it, I will,” Lars said.

  “What makes you freeze her?”

  “That’s none of your damn business.”

  “Neither is this.”

  I started to close the door.

  “Chutes and Ladders?” Lars asked as he pushed his way into the room holding a small box.

  “Sleep.”

  “Zarmina wants me to talk to you. I want to lay with her again. These two things should not be tied together, but they are.”

  He started to set up a game on the floor.

  “If I don’t sit in here for at least half an hour, you and I might get to know each other in a way you don’t want to.”

  “I should have let her die on the side of the road.”

  “No. That would’ve haunted you more. And I wouldn’t have had this chance to play a preschool game today. You wanna be the black kid?”

  Maybe Kiri was right. Times had changed. I couldn’t imagine a game that’d have white and black kids together.

  “You think I should go back for her?”

  “Not for me to say,” he said as he spun the wheel. “Zarmina was stabbed when she went back for her belongings. I told her I’d buy her anything she wanted, but she had a necklace from her mother that’d been passed down for generations.”

  “Why didn’t you go with her?”

  “She waited as long as she could for me, but a tracker had me trapped. By the time I got there she was bleeding out. She had tried to come back to the compound, but only made it a few blocks.”

  “Did you seal with her to take the pain away?”

  “No, Gabriel wouldn’t let me.”

  “So her scar…”

  “Is on her left side. You know how horrific medicine was in the eighteen hundreds. I laid by her side for a week. That’s how she caught the cold. Maybe I helped her because the cold kept her fever down. That’s how I console myself when I look at it.”

  I spun the wheel, moved my piece, and thought about the pain Zarmina had been in and she didn’t seem to see it as a bad thing.

  “I’m what, about a hundred years older than you? Not that age always makes us wiser. Hell, if it wasn’t for Schmitty stayin’ out after a kill every once in a while and sharing his escapades, I’d never know about the real world. We get locked into our routine. We might as well be institutionalized. Sure, this is a great house. We get whatever we need. But we have wants, you know.”

  Lars hit a chute and slid down below me.

  “Life’s always gonna have ups and down, Nye. They’re easier with someone there.”

  He jumped up and headed for the door.

  “Aren’t we gonna finish?”

  “I’m not the one you need for the ups and downs.”

  Lars left. I looked at the game board and then at the clock. Almost seven. That could give me a few hours before I had to go out. Helmet in hand, I raced to the garage.

  “Who is it?”

  Kiri’s voice surprised me. It wasn’t as loud as before. She must have the helmet off. I heard movement and more talking, but I couldn’t make out any words. Someone was at Kiri’s apartment. Slamming down the accelerator, I was no longer driving. I had become a possessed man practically in flight.

  Chapter 9

  Kiriana

  I lay on the floor and looked up at the ceiling in the living room. This was becoming too much of a habit. A knock on my door startled me. I was surprised how many people solicited apartments in this town.

  “Who is it?” No reason to move if I didn’t have to. I wasn’t about to buy a magazine to help someone rea
ch their goal.

  “DJ.”

  Okay, I’ll move. Pulling myself up, I limped to the door. The loud click of the deadbolt was followed by a…

  “Come on, KK, I’m gonna drop this.”

  “Drop what?” I asked as I opened the door to see DJ was holding two bags of groceries and a six-pack of Bud.

  “KK, most people would help.”

  I pulled a bottle from the pack, twisted off the cap, and took a long swallow.

  “Wow, that was useless,” DJ said.

  “Much like a track coach with a missing leg.”

  “Huh?” he said as he walked into the kitchen and set the bags down on the counter. “No table yet?”

  “No reason,” I said as I limped over to the counter and pulled myself up.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Pulled my hamstring on my run Saturday,” I said, taking another swig and tapping out my medication. “Thanks for the anesthetic.”

  “That’s why you weren’t on campus. I thought you ran away.”

  “Nowhere to go.” I swallowed my pills and dropped the bottle back to the counter.

  DJ saddled up between my legs and his hands firmly gripped my ass.

  “Do you have a fever?” I asked at his strange behavior.

  “Well, you did get all dressed up, for little ole’ me?”

  “My shorts are all dirty and I didn’t expect a visitor. The fact I have more than panties on is just my good fortune.”

  “And my bad.”

  “Okay, now I’m really worried about you?”

  “What? I need someone unrelated and undemanding of me to hang out with; is that so strange?”

  “Since when do you hit on me?”

  “Since when don’t you hit on me?”

  “I’ve been cooped up and it’s hard to feel sexy with a sore leg.”

  “You need a rub down. I’d bite the bullet and take care of it for you.”

  I could only think of Nye’s fingers. DJ kissed me lightly on my lips, but I felt nothing.

  “You know I minored in sports medicine,” he said while his finger trailed down my neck to my breasts.

  “Tempting offer, but…you’d actually have to take off the hat.”

  He leaned in right by my ear and whispered seductively.

  “How long has it been, baby? It’s not the hat that comes off.”

  “With me, everything comes off,” I said as I pushed him away.

  “What about you?”

  “I wear a nun’s habit.”

  “Kinky.”

  DJ pulled out some steaks from a grocery bag.

  “You still have the grill set up on the roof?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll go start the coals. I assume you’ll be doing nothing.”

  “What else is there to do?”

  “Well, besides putting on your nun’s habit…how about you make a salad?”

  “Green things,” I giggled. “You’re eating green things.”

  “I’m feeling renewed today.” He leaned his forehead on mine, our noses touched and his dark brown eyes captured mine for a moment. “Suddenly I’m seeing things in a new light, but you’re still my favorite way to avoid work.”

  I swallowed hard and closed my eyes.

  “I’m not passing on fresh veggies so hand ’em over,” I ordered, then turned, crossed my legs, and made the salad in the sink.

  A half-hour later DJ returned, grabbing some plates, knives, and forks.

  “Come on, gimpy. The steaks are almost done.”

  I stretched to loosen myself up.

  “Give it up. You look too pathetic. Hop on,” DJ ordered, bending down so I could piggyback on him. He then balanced the salad on top of the plates and leaned toward my beer, which I happily snagged.

  “Were you a waiter in undergrad?”

  “No. I just dated a lot of chicks.”

  “That explains the balancing act.”

  “I’m a master.”

  The store below my apartment must have been added onto at some time, but they hadn’t expanded the apartment, so I had a makeshift patio out my backdoor. Last week DJ had set up two Adirondack chairs next to a small table.

  “I brought you a present, Citronella. I’m tired of being eaten when I’m trying to eat.”

  “So, it’s a present for you.”

  “Yeah, like I’d ever give you anything, besides the best night of your life. You might make me take off my hat.”

  “I feel sorry for your future wife.”

  “You’re not alone in that one.”

  “I can tell,” I said, pulling the bill of his hat down over his eyes.

  “Eat,” he ordered and readjusted his hat to OCD perfect position.

  “Drink,” I suggested instead and started in on my second beer.

  The alcohol was hitting me. My muscles relaxed just enough so I could extend my leg without pain. But the alcohol wasn’t for my leg. It was for Nye. I was trying to make him go away. It wasn’t working. If it were, I’d already have been in bed with DJ. I’d need more beer for that.

  “Eat,” DJ said, cutting my meat and feeding me a bite.

  For one second Nye was not in my brain, but then I remembered what I had eaten at the compound. Of course the food was perfect. They worked for God or the angels or something.

  “You like my meat?” DJ asked.

  His question brought me back to my pathetic reality. I finished chewing then swallowed.

  “I don’t think you want me doing that to your meat.”

  “The swallowing gave me a few stroke-worthy images.”

  “Juarez, you’re lucky you are good at grilling or I’d have to throw you off my roof. Give me another bite.”

  “I knew you wanted it.”

  “Shut up and feed me like a good assistant.”

  Straddling me DJ slid the fork into my mouth. I closed my eyes and savored the sweet saltiness of the meat. Taking a bite, I felt the juices run down my throat. I felt another piece being held to my lips.

  “Bite it.”

  I shook my head no.

  “Bite it.”

  “No. Ugh. That’s too big,” I said, laughing and trying not to choke.

  “You have such sweet pillow talk.”

  “Not…” I chewed and swallowed, “gonna happen.”

  “Come on. You tease me all the time.”

  “No, I don’t. I sexually harass you. That’s it. And if I can’t sexually harass at work, where can I?”

  “Whatever, loser.”

  DJ settled back in his chair and cut his steak.

  “I’ll break you soon enough. It’s barely been a month and you already love my meat.”

  “Well, it’s so thick and juicy.”

  “Damn, you’re evil.”

  “Did you miss my horns?” I queried and he ran his fingers through my hair.

  “Ooooh, do you have a trident to poke me in my ass, too?”

  We were crossing the line of flirting. I knew I was falling into my old patterns of destruction.

  “So what’s the occasion? Since when can assistants afford steak?”

  I was always rubbing in that I was the head coach. He still made more than I did and he liked to point out that he didn’t have to teach.

  “Turner went to Western Illinois. That’s why I was looking for you today.”

  “What happened?”

  “They offered him a head coaching job. Their coach came down with something and wanted to take time to be with his family.”

  “This steak probably is your whole raise,” I said.

  “Come on, KK, let’s celebrate correctly. I’m still an assistant, so I’m still underneath you. I know how you like bein’ on top, baby.”

  His finger touched my arm, and again, I felt nothing. The soft touch he was using made me remember Nye and that just made it worse.

  “Why ruin our beautiful friendship?” I asked and pulled back my arm.

  “Don’t I get any bene
fits?”

  “You grabbed my ass earlier and I didn’t knee you in the crotch.”

  “One kiss. I guarantee you won’t want it to end.”

  “No. Come on, DJ. You know what will happen.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  DJ crawled on top of me and trapped me underneath him. He tried to kiss me. I turned my head, only to have him caress my neck.

  “KK. You gotta at least let me on base,” he whispered.

  My eyes were blankly staring off into the distance. Focusing down the block at the backs of a few stores. My mind had stepped out of my body. DJ’s lips explored my body, but I didn’t even register the sexual act. DJ began moaning and saying nasty things about what he would like to do to my body, but I had done this too many times. I was ready to draw the line. If I couldn’t have Nye, I didn’t want anybody.

  “DJ?”

  I looked down to see a lump under my skirt. It was DJ’s head between my legs. I hadn’t even registered the sensation.

  “Stop.”

  He popped out from under the skirt and looked at me with the biggest puppy dog eyes I had ever seen.

  “Stop. I care about you and all but…” I said as I pulled his head up to my lips. “I feel nothing in your touch and I’m tired of not feeling anything.”

  “You’ll feel something. You will. I promise.”

  “I need a connection. Sweetie, go home. We’ll forget this ever happened. Go back to being besties.”

  “I’ll take off my hat.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “I turned it around at least.”

  DJ smiled then kissed me on the lips.

  “I felt something.”

  “I didn’t.”

  DJ lowered his head to my chest and sighed. My fingers ran over the rough cotton of his hat. My lips lightly touched the top of his head.

  “Nothing happened,” his muffled voice reverberated off my chest.

  “Nothing but a great meal.”

  “You still like my meat?”

  “I love your meat, baby.”

  * * * *

  I couldn’t look any more. Kiri’s laugh was cutting through my heart. I leapt off an old Victorian home three blocks from Kiri’s apartment. It had been easy for me to watch her from the third story of the house. Why I was there I’d never understand. I told her to go. I told her I’d leave her alone. How could I be mad she was doing what she should be?