Faithless Dreams

by C. R. Jane

  "How's my favorite student doing?" he asks. I smile nervously back at him.

  I had liked him a lot at first. He’d always treated me with respect and hadn't seemed as interested in me as most of the male population was.

  But I had come to see that Professor Oliver wore a mask. And he wasn't very good at hiding what was behind it anymore. I go to the back of the room and sit down awkwardly, hoping that the class will fill up fast. I could feel Professor Oliver's eyes on me.

  I studiously ignore him.

  "Today we’re going to be going over artwork centered on Adam and Eve's fall from grace." Professor Oliver begins the class with.

  I sit up straighter, wondering if this was real life. This is exactly the sort of thing that I'd been dreading. More serpents.

  "I'm going to be showing you a set of slides. All of these pictures depict some of the most famous artistic creations of Eve's fall. Can anyone tell me some of the alternate stories about the serpent Lucifer?" Prof. Oliver asks as he flips on the projector.

  A series of images begin to show on the projector screen. They were from all different time periods, all showing different parts of the story. In some Eve was blonde, in another she had brunette hair. In some Eve was smiling at the serpent, looking at it as if it was nothing but a fluffy bunny instead of a poisonous snake. In others, she was frightened.

  The ones that stuck out to me the most, though, were the ones where she looked devastated. I had always liked the idea that Eve had no choice but to take the apple from the serpent. I hated the idea that Eve had been tricked. It always made more sense to me that after being cautioned by God to stay away from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that she wouldn't have done what she did without a really good reason.

  Or at least that was my hope, comparing it to the situation that I had been dreaming about for months. I had hoped that whatever had happened in the end with Aiden in my Fairie kingdom that had lost me Mason, Damon, and Beckham, had been my choice.

  “Um, there's no other stories about the creation. It is how the Bible says." says a girl named Rosemary who is seated three desks to my left. She would say that. She was strung so tightly that I was afraid she would explode any day now.

  Professor Oliver clucks his tongue at her, sounding extremely close to the way a chicken does as it moves around the hen yard. I stifle my grin at the thought. "If there's one thing that I hope that you finish with at the end of this class, Rosemary, it’s that you should always know that there's two sides to every story. Just like different people can look at a piece of artwork and see two different things, I would hope that you would go out into the world after you leave this school with the understanding that there's multiple ways to look at things."

  Rosemary looks offended, but she doesn’t say anything back to him.

  Professor Oliver looks around the room. “Does anyone else want to take a crack at my question?" he asks in a frustrated voice. He hates when the class doesn’t participate.

  A guy whose name I don’t know, raises his hand on the far side of the room.

  "Yes, Jacob," Professor Oliver says delightedly.

  Jacob clears his throat nervously. "I once read a myth where Eve was actually Lilith. And the whole thing started because Lilith had been taken away from Satan by the gods and given to Adam to marry. I think I read that Satan was furious, and he had originally set out to kill Lilith. When he saw her again, he was still so in love with her though that he couldn't bring himself to do it, and that's where he came up with the idea of the apple. He let Eve know that it was either death or eat the apple, and at that point she had fallen in love with Adam and didn't want to leave him. She took a bite of the apple so that she could stay with him.”

  Jacob’s face blushes as he realizes that everyone is looking at him intently. Everyone except Professor Oliver and myself though. He’s looking...at me. My eyes have been scanning the room, watching my classmates’ reactions, and so when they meet his, I jump a little in surprise.

  I enjoy art history, but the art that he seems to focus on hits a little too close to home. I’ve started to feel him watching me more and more, and not in a sexual way. It’s like he’s waiting for me to come to some awakening as if the art is suddenly going to bring something to my attention.

  And maybe it will based on my vision in his office a few weeks ago.

  I want to bury my head in the sand, but I can feel myself getting closer and closer to the truth.

  But what part in my story does Professor Oliver play?

  Chapter 2

  My mind is still full of Jacob’s story as I get ready for my date with Mason the next evening. It’s a helpful distraction from the fact that Mason is going to be gone for a few months while I’ll be in New York finishing the semester.

  I know he wants me to go with him, but I can’t. Although I would give my life for the three of them, giving up my chance at an education to follow him around the world just isn’t something I can do. It would be the same for Beckham and Damon. From what I can tell, all of my lives have been dictated by the men that I have loved and the men that have loved me for centuries.

  It’s my goal to somehow create a separate existence for myself that doesn’t revolve around them.

  I just wish I knew if my goal was possible.

  “Knock, knock,” comes Mason’s voice, and my resolve weakens just from the sound of it. My incubus is beautiful, that’s all I can say. There are words that would probably do him more justice, but it’s hard to have rational thoughts when I see him like this.

  Evidently, he’s going all out tonight. Mason is dressed in a full-on tuxedo, something he didn’t even wear to the Grammy’s. I’m kind of glad that he didn’t. He looks so sinful that I’m glad that the whole world didn’t get to see it, but that I do.

  I smooth down the purple, silk cocktail dress that I had borrowed from Lexi for tonight, glad that I had dressed up.

  “I like this color on you,” Mason says, devouring me with his eyes as he lazily trails them down my body. I can feel every nerve flickering to life as he examines me.

  “It matches this,” he says as he pulls a black velvet box from behind his back and slowly opens it.

  I gasp when I see a stunning necklace made of beautiful purple gemstones laying inside the box. “What kind of gem is that?” I ask, as he pulls the necklace out of the box and places it on my neck. Shivers dance down my body as his fingertips stroke my neck as he fastens the clasp.

  “They’re purple emeralds. I wanted something that reminded me of your eyes, and this caught my attention the second I went in to the store.”

  After he fastens the necklace, he begins to drag his lips down my neck and across my shoulders. I’m burning. My body feels like there’s fireworks going off inside of me and I’m suddenly desperate for him.

  I turn around suddenly and crash my lips against his, fisting my hands in his hair. Our tongues tangle and I swear I’m melting for him as he thrusts his tongue inside of my mouth, making me whimper.

  One of his hands slides down my back, and he clenches my dress tightly in his fist before pulling away with a groan.

  “We’re never going to go on our date if we don’t stop and leave right now,” he says in a guttural voice.

  I move to pull him back down to me. “That’s the point,” I say breathlessly.

  He looks like he’s about to give in as his lips start to inch towards me once again, but then he pulls abruptly back and shakes his head as if he’s clearing the lust out of it.

  “I’ve planned the perfect date, my love. Don’t tempt me not to take you on it.”

  For a second my body wars with my heart, wanting nothing more than to take him to bed. Sighing, I reluctantly take a deep breath and smooth down my dress, trying to get ahold of myself.

  I grab some lipstick and put it on, my hand shaking a little from the adrenaline rush.

  “Okay, I’m ready,” I tell him as I grab my simple black clutch.

  He groans
and runs his hand down my face. “You’re killing me,” he says. “We have to get out of here right now.”

  Mason practically drags me out of the penthouse and downstairs. As we walk outside, I can’t help but cast a furtive glance to see if there is anyone watching us...or any discarded bodies. The front of our building was probably going to haunt me for some time.

  Luckily, the area was clear, and I didn’t feel the burn of eyes watching me as I did sometimes.

  There was a black town car waiting for us in front of the building. Mason opens the door and helps me inside. He then hops into the car, sliding his body so he is practically sitting on top of me.

  “We have the whole backseat at our disposal,” I tell him, amused.

  I didn’t realize how Mason would probably take that statement until I found myself pinned to the seat; Mason’s body stretched out on top of me.

  His tongue strokes the inside of my mouth and all I want is more.

  He finally pries himself off of me and we both sit up in our seats, gasping for breath.

  The car that Mason had ordered didn’t have a divider separating the driver from the passengers and I can see that the driver’s face is a brilliant red color. That was quite the show that we just gave him. He’s trying desperately to keep his eyes averted from our backseat action.

  “Behave,” I whisper to Mason. He just grins at me devilishly.

  I’m reminded again of how different the three men were, how they all satisfied something different inside of me. Damon was my intense protector. He challenged me and forced me to grow. Beckham was my steady rock. He had always been there, would always be there. I had a history with him that couldn’t be replicated. And Mason, Mason was the one who reminded me that life could be fun. He was the most accepting out of all of them, the one most likely to go with the flow. I needed that to offset the intensity of Damon, and the guilt I sometimes felt with Beckham.

  I needed all of them. And that was the problem.

  “Why did you get sad all of a sudden?” Mason asks, picking up my hand and brushing a kiss across the top of it sweetly.

  “Just thinking about how much you mean to me,” I tell him softly. It was only a half-truth, but I didn’t feel like now was the right time to go over the guilt I was feeling once again. I didn’t want to spoil tonight.

  “You’re my whole world,” Mason says roughly, giving me a hard, quick kiss. “Just tell me not to leave tomorrow and I won’t,” he says almost desperately.

  I smile sadly at him. “You know I’m not going to do that. I can’t keep you from your dreams. I just have to find some of my own to compliment them.”

  Mason groans and throws his head back against the seat. “I’ve never dreaded music so much.”

  A grim silence settles over both of us after that.

  Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I turn to him and grab his hands, pulling them against my chest. His eyes immediately drop to my breasts.

  Boys.

  “We’re just going to pretend this is just another date night. We won’t talk about you leaving, we won’t talk about anything sad until tomorrow morning.”

  He sighs. “Okay, love.”

  I give him a tremulous smile. Right at that moment the town car stops. Mason looks out the window and then turns back to me and grins. “We’re here,” he says excitedly.

  Looking out the window, I realize where we are. We’re at the club where I had first sung karaoke with Mason the night that I had met him.

  “I know it’s probably not safe for you to sing here. But I thought we could at least eat and listen. Relive one of the best nights of my life.”

  I smile at him. “That sounds perfect. It was one of the best nights of my life as well.”

  Mason’s face lights up.

  We go in through the side entrance and a thousand memories assault me. The feeling I had when he took my hand. The magic of singing with him. His laugh.

  It all washes over me.

  We’re led to a table in the VIP section, so we won’t be bothered by Mason’s fans. We watch as the performances start. There’s a mixture of good and bad. A bachelorette party gets up and sings “You’re So Vain” by Carly Simon. It’s the worst singing that I’ve ever heard but I love how much energy and fun the girls all have while performing. The bride is in the middle and for a moment I catch myself envisioning me at a bachelorette party, dressed in a cute white dress with a veil and a penis necklace.

  Just as soon as I start to daydream about my party, I shut it down. How was I supposed to marry three guys? There had been a time where I had dreamed about marrying Beckham, back when he was my childhood love and Mason and Damon weren’t a part of my life. But it would never work now.

  “What’s wrong, love?” Mason asks, seeing the glum look on my face.

  “Nothing,” I quickly say, not wanting to ruin the evening with my stupid worries. I know what Mason would say, it’s what he always says. That everything will work out.

  I know enough about our pasts to know that’s not true.

  “I have an idea,” Mason says grinning sexily at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says.

  I watch the tight lines of his back and butt as he walks away...he’s gorgeous and all mine.

  I’m watching the next performance when someone sits down next to me at the table.

  Annoyed, I look over and see a guy dressed as a goth sitting next to me.

  “I’m sorry, but I have someone returning. This table is full,” I say politely.

  The guy just grins.

  All of a sudden, I gasp. Looking closely, I can see that it’s Mason. His face has been powdered white and his eyes have been rimmed with charcoal. He’s wearing a black mullet wig and he’s changed from his tux into an all black getup.

  “Um, what are you doing?” I ask, laughter bubbling out of me.

  “I think we need to perform before dinner,” he says. “This ensures that no one will recognize me. Now we just need a costume for you,” he says, pulling a bag out from under the table.

  “Where did you get these costumes?” I ask, pulling out a grunge outfit complete with a red wig.

  “They do a costume night once a month and these are some of the costumes that people use.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I ask, remembering the strange things that seem to happen to my body...and his body, when we sing together.

  “What’s the fun of living a life without risk?” he responds with a wink.

  Plenty, I think.

  He stands up and pulls me up. “Let’s get you changed and then it’s showtime.”

  I change in a bathroom stall, emerging from the bathroom looking nothing like myself. I’m wearing a faded Nirvana shirt and baggy jeans, a fake nose ring, and my red wig. I put bright red lipstick on and darken my eyes. Mason’s eyes widen when he sees me.

  “What do you think?” I laughingly ask.

  “Sexy,” he says. “But I think I like you as a blonde better.”

  “What song are we singing?” I ask as we wait on the side of the stage for our turn.

  “Hmm...what about a little Tim and Faith number?”

  “I Need You,” I respond immediately.

  “Any particular reason?” Mason asks, cocking his head to angle it towards me. I’m caught off guard every time I look at him in that getup and I stifle a grin.

  “I just like the message,” I say, suddenly feeling shy.

  Mason looks at me for a second longer, but luckily, he’s distracted when we’re called up to the stage. I giggle in delight when the announcer calls out “Vince Blackbird.”

  “Did you take that goth Facebook quiz I told you about the other day,” I ask knowingly.

  Mason just responds with a wink as he drags me on stage.

  I’m all too aware that the song choice we picked does not fit our outfits, but it just makes it more fun.

  The crowd cheers for us when we get on stage, it’s a
more subdued cheer than other parties got, but I don’t blame them. We look ridiculous. Mason and I sit on chairs facing each other, channeling our “Tim and Faith” vibes and the music starts.

  Everything fades away as we start to sing to each other. There’s a moment, when Mason sings the line, “I wanna smell that sweet addiction on my breathe,” that I just want to freeze life. If I could spend every day singing with Mason and loving him, I would consider it a life well lived.

  Just as I have that thought, the area around the stage explodes in fire.

  Screams erupt as the previously dimly lit club becomes illuminated by the flickering flames. Plumes of angry black smoke begin to spread itself through the room as the fire begins to devour everything in its path. The fire is blazing out of control and I’m frozen on the stage, the song still playing in the background amidst the panic in the room.

  “Eva,” Mason yells, grabbing my arm and beginning to pull me away from the fire that seems to be reaching for me.

  I come back to life at the sound of the alarm in his voice and I begin to run along beside him, joining the pack of people trying desperately to get out through the exits. I look behind us as we run, wanting to make sure that people are escaping the fire when a flash of blonde hair catches my eye. It almost looks like I’m seeing Eric, but when I blink...he’s gone.

  Shaking my head to try and clear it, I’m relieved to see that the room is almost empty, my momentary lapse when the fire broke out making us one of the last to leave.

  The fire seems to be licking at our heels and we both cough and choke as we run to the exit.

  It seems like an eternity passes before we make it out into the freezing night. People are huddled together on the sidewalk, sobbing and clutching each other as the flames start to dance over the roof.

  Sirens can be heard in the distance as emergency vehicles make their way to the scene. Mason moves us across the street, and we watch in horror as the roof collapses in.

  I stare at all of the sobbing people that were just laughing in the bar and murmur a prayer to whoever is up there that everyone survived.