But something came over Jimmy when Sapphire grabbed his hand. It was like a shot of electricity ran through his body, from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. The world seemed to disappear behind them, fading out like an old television signal. Her eyes captured his, and he soon found himself moving along with her in a way he had never moved with anyone else. In moments, he was lost.
The music overtook them. As they danced they held each other, then just held hands, then danced apart, but looking at each other, and then came back together again, over and over again. She smiled at him and he smiled back. The music receded just like the people around them. They floated across the floor and the people around them parted without looking at them. It was as if they had merely to wave their hands and the other dancers would react unconsciously.
Sapphire and Jimmy revolved around each other like planets. With each new song the tempo changed and they didn’t miss a beat. Jimmy didn’t feel hot or tired or out of breath. They grew closer, her arms wrapped around his neck and she pulled his head close to her neck and Jimmy reciprocated and put his arms around her waist and held her close to him. She felt alive, vibrating beneath his fingers, and the warmth radiating from her made sweat stand out on his upper lip. The lights grew dim and they rocked slowly, revolving in a small circle, their foreheads pressed together, his eyes never leaving her green orbs.
They danced for hours. At some point, most of the dancers on the floor vanished and sat down at the tables. Jimmy registered the fact that they were virtually alone on the floor and that the music had changed, and that the others were eating, but he dismissed all of it. It was as if he were feeding off the energy that Sapphire was radiating from her pores. She seemed not to have a single bead of sweat anywhere on her body. She showed not a single moment of being tired. She smiled and laughed as he swung her around in his arms. Her feet never seemed to tire, her muscles apparently as strong as when they had first hit the dance floor. Jimmy just laughed with her and continued to dance, oblivious to the stares that pursued them as they danced.
Only when George tapped him on the shoulder was the spell broken. Jimmy felt it on his right shoulder, and shrugged it off. Then he felt another tap, this one more urgent. Again, he shrugged it off and continued to dance. Then a hand grabbed his left shoulder and gripped hard, pulling him around and pulling his gaze away from Sapphire.
“What?” he said to George, feeling out of breath for the first time. “What do you want?”
George’s eyes froze him to the spot. George’s face was livid. His lip curled.
“It’s time to leave,” George said.
“What do you mean?” Jimmy said. “The dance goes until midnight.”
George held up his watch. “It is midnight, you dumb-ass. You’ve been out here dancing for hours. And, in case you haven’t noticed, you’ve been garnering more attention than anyone and anything else. You’re upsetting the natural balance of things and the athletes have noticed.”
Jimmy blinked in surprise. He looked around. The gym was half empty. The remaining dancers were staring at Jimmy. There were a few of the jocks left, hanging near the back wall, and they were staring at Jimmy and Sapphire.
“How is that possible?” Jimmy asked.
George threw his hands out to the side. “You tell me, Astaire! You’ve been dancing non-stop for hours. How the hell is that possible?”
Jimmy blinked again. He couldn’t stop himself from blinking. He felt as if he had been napping for hours and George had just thrown a bucket of cold water all over him. His mouth opened and closed, as if he were trying to find the right words, but no words came out. He had been dancing for hours? He had missed dinner? How had any of this happened? How had this entire night actually happened? Then he felt Sapphire’s dazzlingly warm hand in his.
“It’s OK, Jimmy,” she said close to his ear. “George is right. We’ve been dancing for hours. The prom is over.”
“Finally,” George said, throwing his hands out in that comical and dramatic way again. “Finally, she makes sense.”
Jimmy grabbed George’s shirt. “Stop being rude, George. I swear to God, you have no idea what kind of crap comes out of your mouth. Just because Sapphire and I had a good time while you sat at the table and watched isn’t my fault.”
It was George’s turn to blink in surprise at the overreaction. Jimmy had never reacted that way before to anything George had said. Something was happening to Jimmy, and he was not acting like himself. His mouth opened and closed as Jimmy’s had. Then he swallowed, a look of pain—and, perhaps, jealousy—washed over his face for a moment, and then was gone. George straightened his shirt collar and cleared his throat.
“I apologize,” he said. Then he did a weird little bow toward Sapphire. “If I offended you, Sapphire, I apologize to you, as well.”
Sapphire beamed. “George, I take no offense. You should have come out and danced with us.”
George straightened from his little bow. He smoothed his shirt again. He gave a strange, cock-eyed look at Jimmy and then looked back at Sapphire.
“There didn’t seem to be much room out there,” he said simply. “I’ll go to the parking lot and get the car warmed up. You guys get whatever you need and head out there. Try not to dawdle.”
George turned and grabbed his tuxedo jacket. He looked down at the floor and swung the jacket over his shoulder. Jimmy and Sapphire watched him as he left.
Jimmy turned and looked at Sapphire. She was still smiling. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and she looked so alive. Her face looked flushed and her eyes sparkled.
“I can’t believe we danced all night,” Jimmy said. “Now I’m starving.”
She laughed. “Well, we can eat when we get home. You guys will give me a lift back, right?”
Jimmy looked surprised. “Of course. Why would you think we wouldn’t?”
She shrugged. “You just never know.”
“Can I see you again?” Jimmy blurted out the words before realizing he had done so. He put a hand to his lips. “I’m sorry.”
Sapphire smiled, reaching up and taking his hand away from his mouth. For a moment her hand felt very cold against his skin, and then there seemed to be a kind of transfer of warmth between them. After that, she was warm and alive again.
“We’ll see,” she said. “You don’t have to be shy with me, Jimmy. I like you and I’d like to see you again. It’s just—”
Jimmy felt his heart sink into his shoes. He knew this was too good to be true.
“What?” He asked.
“It’s a bit complicated,” Sapphire said. “Sorry. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t. Not now.”
Then, suddenly, she stood on her toes and kissed him lightly on the lips. There was that strange sensation of freezing cold followed by intense warmth as they kissed, and an equally strange feeling of energy being transferred from him into her.
“I’m going to take that as a good sign,” Jimmy said, and smiled.
“You should,” Sapphire said
He put his hand on her waist and they turned to walk toward the door. As Jimmy turned around, he found his path blocked. His heart, having just risen out of his shoes, suddenly plummeted back into them again. Yes, Jimmy had upset the very careful order of things at the school. He was a dork, someone to be reviled and preyed upon by the popular kids and the jocks, in particular. He was expected to show up to the dance either with his ugly cousin or some unpopular girl. Instead, he had shown up with a gorgeous girl who cast a strange spell on everyone and everything around her. She had entranced them as much as she had Jimmy, but what really had upset things was the fact that she was even with Jimmy. No, this was wrong, and Jimmy knew it and knew that the jocks knew it. Now, it was time to reset the balance of things.
Three of the football players Jimmy had seen watching them on the floor at the prom were standing there. Jimmy didn’t really know them except for the torment that they liked to heap upon him and others like him for no other reason tha
n that they could. Maybe it made them feel better about having to shower with each another after practices. In front of him were Stan Little, the team quarterback and easily the most popular boy in school, Dale Tern, one of the defensive players and roughly as big as a small mountain—and about as smart as one—and Clinton Marsters, a running back. Their expressions said that this was not a social call. No, this was a call to re-establish the hierarchy of things at Knorr High School. Namely, the gorgeous girls were with the jocks, and Jimmy was to cower in the corner while they did what they wanted.
“Hey, nerdling,” said Stan. “We think your date should come with us.”
“Yeah,” said Dale, his eyes blinking way too rapidly. “We can’t figure why she came here with you in the first place.”
He pronounced the word “figger,” and Jimmy resisted the urge to correct him.
“You can be on your way now, little man,” said Clinton.
Clinton stepped forward and reached out for Sapphire. His hand closed around her wrist. Sapphire’s eyes got wide and she looked at Jimmy in fear. Clinton yanked Sapphire’s hand away from Jimmy’s.
Jimmy reacted without thinking, his head still spinning as if he were drunk, reacting in a way he never expected and had never done before. He reached over, grabbed a fork off the nearby table, and jammed it with all of his strength into Clinton’s hand. The jock’s eyes went wide in shock rather than pain. Jimmy was certain that the ’roided-up jock did not feel any pain, but he saw the immediate shock and outrage on his face. Blood spurted from the wound, spattering in fine droplets across the floor. Clinton’s eyes threatened to come right out of his head. His mouth opened to scream.
Jimmy reacted again, almost totally on instinct, as if someone else were controlling him, moving in a way he never had before. He stepped forward, yanked the fork out of Clinton’s hand, and clamped his left hand across Clinton’s mouth. Although Jimmy was skinny, he had the advantage of being relatively tall, so he looked right into Clinton’s eyes. With his right hand he held the tines of the fork to Clinton’s neck, just below his chin.
“You scream,” Jimmy said in an even, cold voice that he barely recognized as his own, “and I stick this somewhere you really won’t want it stuck. Do you get me? If your friends make a move, I will shove this up through your mouth and into your tongue. Nod if you understand—provided you can actually understand basic English.”
Clinton’s eyes were still so wide that Jimmy thought he could see all the way to the back of his skull. Snot ran from his nose and tears were streaming from both eyes. He nodded.
“Now, unhand the lady,” Jimmy said.
Clinton released Sapphire’s hand.
Jimmy nodded and let go of Clinton’s mouth. Clinton held his hand like a dead fish with his other hand, still bleeding quite freely onto the floor. Jimmy turned to face the other two jocks. They looked at him with wide eyes. Jimmy tossed the fork at Stan, and he jumped back as if Jimmy had just thrown a dead rat at him, but the fork, with one tine now bent, hit him in the chest. Stan fumbled for the fork as it bounced off his chest.
“Now, gentlemen,” Jimmy said, feeling Sapphire’s hand in his again. “If you please, stand aside. Sapphire and I have to leave your lovely company. Enjoy getting drunk, and, hopefully, driving fatally off a road somewhere later on this evening.”
Jimmy did his own little bow and then he and Sapphire walked past the stunned jocks. He did not look back. Instead, he looked at Sapphire, and she smiled and laughed as they walked across the floor. Once again, Jimmy felt so lost in her eyes that he did not notice the dozens of pairs of eyes that watched them as walked to the door.
“This isn’t over!” Jimmy heard Stan yell as they reached the door.
Jimmy turned to look at the jocks. Stan stood in front of Clinton, and they had wrapped one of the napkins around his bleeding hand. Jimmy figured that Clinton would not be playing much football—or any other sport—anytime soon.
“Bring it on,” Jimmy said as he pushed open the door.
Sapphire walked past him and into the night. Jimmy stared at the three jocks until she was past, and then he walked out, as well. The door slammed behind him, the sound echoing around the gymnasium.
4
“Jesus Christ!” Jimmy said with a nervous laugh as he walked toward the car. He could see George leaning against the driver’s side door. “Did I just stab one of the biggest, meanest assholes in the school with a fork?”
Sapphire laughed. “You were fantastic!”
She threw her arms around him and he swung her around, laughing. He hadn’t had a single drop of alcohol all night, but he felt drunk. Or, to put a finer point on it, he felt what he imagined it felt like to be drunk. He had never had much more than a sip of beer and a glass of wine in his life, and had never had a single narcotic that wasn’t prescribed by a doctor. The world was spinning and his head felt like something was inside of it running around rapidly in a circle.
“What the hell am I going to do on Monday?” he said as he put Sapphire back down on her feet. He noticed, just barely, that she shivered as he did so. “Come Monday, I am a dead man.”
“No,” Sapphire said, “I think your days of being pushed around are over, Jimmy. You are a new man.”
“I’m a new man because of you,” he said, taking her hand in his. Her fingers were like ice, and he shivered in response. “I saw him touch you, and it was just like something took me over. I couldn’t do something like that again right now if I tried.”
Sapphire shook her head and then tilted it back, as if studying the sky for a moment, and then looked at him again. Her skin seemed paler than ever. Her eyes were somehow greener.
“No,” she said. “No, it was always inside you. You were always capable of doing that. You just needed something to boost you a bit. Now that you’ve found those reserves of strength, you can find them again.”
He laughed and they swung their arms, their fingers intertwined. They neared the car and George stopped leaning on the car door and started to get in.
“You will not believe what just happened,” Jimmy said.
It took a few moments to relay the story. George drove, his mouth hanging open. When Jimmy finished, he broke into a laugh. He laughed so hard that Jimmy was worried for a moment that he was going to drive the car right off the road.
“You are such a dead man come Monday,” he said, “but let’s just enjoy scoring one for our side for the weekend, shall we?”
Jimmy laughed and nodded. He heard the musical tones of Sapphire’s laugh, as well, but it was slightly different from the laughter she had exuded while at the dance. Jimmy felt her shiver again next to him.
“Are you cold?” Jimmy asked.
Sapphire nodded. Her eyes were still bright, but there was something else behind them. It was as if she were suddenly worried about something.
“Here,” Jimmy said, and removed his jacket. He helped her put it around her shoulders. Then she moved in closer to him and he put his arm around her. Her skin was freezing.
“Thanks,” she said.
They drove for a bit more, and then George rounded a corner and began heading down the twisting and turning road where they had originally picked up Sapphire.
“So Sapphire,” George said,” where shall I drop you off?”
“You can drop me off by the bridge where you picked me up,” she said. “I want to walk the rest of the way home.”
Jimmy frowned. He looked to his left and saw a puzzled expression on George’s face.
“We can take you to your front door,” Jimmy said. “It’s not safe to just be walking on these roads at night, Sapphire.”
She reached out a hand and touched Jimmy’s cheek. “Don’t worry, Jimmy. I’m not far from the bridge. Just do me this last favor, please?”
Jimmy nodded. He felt an odd sinking feeling in his stomach. Something was wrong, and suddenly he shivered next to Sapphire. It was as if the heat was being drawn out of the car.
“OK,
” Jimmy said.
He turned and faced the front window. The road rolled up into the headlights and seemed to disappear beneath the car. George was not driving nearly as fast as he had been when they had driven to the dance. Jimmy looked to the left and saw a tense expression on George’s face.
They arrived at the bridge all too quickly. George pulled over, on the opposite side of the road from where they had picked up the beautiful girl that sat next to Jimmy. The headlights washed over the railing of the bridge, but they did not do much to push away the encroaching darkness. It was as if the darkness had fingers and it was reaching out towards them.
Sapphire opened the door and stepped out. Jimmy paused for a moment, and then looked at George before sliding out the door after her. She stood just outside the open door, Jimmy’s jacket draped across her shoulders, as if she were waiting for him.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Jimmy said once he was standing there in front of her.
She stepped closer to him. He could see her skin in amazing detail despite the shadows. He was shaking, but he didn’t feel cold.
“Thank you for a wonderful night, Jimmy,” she said.
“Can I see you again?” Jimmy blurted. “I have to see you again.”
Sapphire’s face seemed to darken and she looked down. Then she looked back up, her smile faltering, unsteady on her face. Her eyes still sparkled, but there was something different about her. Jimmy felt a sudden overpowering feeling of sadness wash over him. It was all he could do to keep from weeping.
“Yes,” she said. “Meet me here, tomorrow night. Come around sunset.”
Jimmy smiled. Sapphire smiled back.
“I’ll be here,” Jimmy said. “If I have to fight off the entire football team, I’ll be here.”
Sapphire: A Paranormal Romance Page 3
