Forgive Me

A Jealous Night of Sorrow

My body-- cradled in the musk of David's clothing, unwilling to shudder from his tender touch-- basked in Lar's gaze. A man! he realized, a man held my attention!

-2/8/1920

What awoke me was not a sudden jolt of unexpectancy but the comfort of a heart beating against my chest.

The frost-bitten air nipped at my exposed skin and I shuddered, burrowing myself deeper into the cloth of a coat. No thought was brought to my surroundings, which was the dimming darkness of night relinquishing its grip on the day, nor my location: the steadily passing streets of early Boston. Something held my brain in a mush, dripping off its flesh and into the palms of my bearer. Who it was catching my drowsy state and holding my blurry figure in their arms, I did not know.

It did not take me long to figure it out.

I eagerly laid my head to rest on his chest, feeling the outline of something firm and righteous on his stomach, while I, a sin, was desperate to kiss it. They pleaded for the restraining binds of the cloth to be rid of their figure and for my lips to take possession of that weakness. How much I wished to cup him in my palms and silence the forbidden wishes his savage tore across his expression; my femininity was attracted, with a zap of pleasure, to his every muscle.

Finally, taking my sins from his belt and replacing them above, I met his eyes. I almost fell from the infant position his arms held me in upon experiencing the same raw energy in his stare. Without any words, the white flames twirling in his pupils were enough to convey enough emotion to bring a man to his knees. A fret especially outlined his face; every additional peak of his forehead and cheeks were aimed down at his feet. It all hung, like a salted corpse, and clung to the maintained composure. Beside it, I recognized interest buried, and amusement. Lust, even, was ingrained in his stone flesh. They all bled through his sockets and dribbled into my lap.

Still, even with the immense amount of frustrating emotion carved into his face, it took only a second for it to return stone.

"The servingman," he snapped, an aggressive curl to his words, "he slipped something in your drink. You passed out."

I could see, with an expert eye, the man was not yet completely sober. But he was not radically intoxicated either. There was enough in his system to leak into his words, but not enough to wobble our departure.

A smile crept onto my lips as I shifted my shoulders in his arms. "Why are you carrying me down the street, Detective?"

"David," he reminded and shrugged-- just about the only thing he could do with my weight on his appendages. "The man had intentions with you. He drugged an innocent woman, and right in front of an officer too."

"Can you even begin to object his actions when you were under similar influence?"

"I was not simply there to drink, dear. A man must know his hideouts, and what better hideout than there? I arrested every single man and woman in that dreary kitchen without so much as backlash."

"Why am I not being hauled away by your gang, then?" I scorned, presenting my disapproval with my tone.

Again, he shrugged. "One night," David murmured. "You were there for a night of sorrow. How can a man persecute you for that?"

With the turn of his illuminated neck, I suddenly became aware of no urgency in me to flee from his arms. Warmth leaked from his skin and patterned about my own, providing only security in the freezing night. I never wanted to leave.

"Where is your complex?" he paused, turning to face the cake-layers of the streets. Boston is a disorganized clutter, an exciting menace, and an erotic screamer; despite its chaos, however, no streets stood so erect as these.

I pointed a finger down the street, placing its tip directly onto the complex and wavering. It occurred to me that he was bringing me to my living quarters-- never asking whether I wanted to be let down from his arms-- without so much as a second thought. A man carrying an unsuspecting, practically unconscious woman down the streets was concerning enough, but here it felt nothing of the sort; in fact, I wished for him to trip over the cracked porch, drop my body on my quilt, and possess my every trembling urge with his tongue.

The thoughts corroded my brain and I shook them from me, focusing only on the warmth consuming my skin and the blood pumping through my cheeks. A demon stood above me, entrancing my eyes with immediate arousal, and crushing my pleasure in its talon. But no! This was no fallen face, but a breathless angel of seduction! He took me by his gentle strokes, brushing my cheek with his wing, and planted his flower kisses on my skin. There was no uncertainty in my heart: this was sent from Heaven.

Perhaps I would have asked him to come inside if the person sitting on the porch, once a dot from down the streets, became a familiar and manic face.

Lars, with his soil hair curtained over his fingers, sat hunched on the stairs of the apartment. His glasses were fogged with the perspiration of the dawn's breath and his skin was trembling in the cold. Holding his arms in his blue hands, he glanced from street to street in search of another face: mine.

When his eyes finally did land on my approaching figure, they lit with relief; however, the initial bliss on his face was short-lived. His eyes traveled upward and examined the handsome complexion beside mine. Then, without breaking his rhythm, the crevices of his face contorted into sheer anger. Never had I seen such emotion gripping his face! I disliked it!

"Missy!" he exclaimed, starting from his seat on the steps and opening his arms, as if to embrace me. Halfway through his step forward, however, he changed his mind and let his arms fall to his sides. "Where have you been? You weren't in 203!"

"Out," I said flatly, more concerned with keeping my body in David's arms than answering his questions.

"Out?! Out after midnight and deep into early morning?! Out with. . . " He paused to stare David up and down, as if to size him up. He would rather not insult a man who could easily tear him apart. "Out with a strange man?!"

"This is the detective, Lars."

His mouth snapped shut, reeling from a comment he could not make. Once again, he observed the massive figure of the other man. Now he saw him in a new light: intimidating. One could trace his muscular arms with a finger and never touch soft skin. He was so fit, I might say, that Lars, even with his background, was frightened.

"Is this your husband?" David asked, his voice lacking so much emotion I feared he had been replaced by a slate of cold marble.

This comment brought an excessive amount of color to Lars' pale cheeks and his lips grew warm. "No," he snapped, closing one eye to shield its wide arrangement. "I am Missy's downstairs neighbor and longtime friend of our Atlantic trip, nothing more."

"Ah." His arms loosened and I was, reluctantly, dropped on my feet to the sidewalk. "I could tell; your speech is so thickly resembling the Italian language, it brings me no surprise to know you are not from Boston."

"From the moment you spoke, I could tell you have had minimal education. How far have you reached, primary school?"

"Lars!" I gasped, earning his scowl. I had never seen my friend act so childish as in the presence of Detective Holly! Not one word out of pure respect had been uttered toward him; yet, here he was spouting unnecessary insults at a stranger!

David did not react, only brought about a stiffer ice to his gaze. Those eyes seemed to impregnate the air with Winter's only children, despite it already being cold enough to freeze.

"What exactly were you doing with Missy?" Lars accused. "Did you steal her from her slumber? Did you poison her? Did you take advantage of her kindness?"

"Lars, calm your accusations! The man has done me no wrong!"

"Then why are your legs wobbling and your eyes flickering! You are not in your right mind tonight!" He took my wrist in his hand and I flinched, drifting from side-to-side. The effects of the servingman's drugs were still clutching my senses and rendering me unable to function.

"A man was attempting to knock me unconscious with his solutions and David kept me safe from him."

"That is what he would like you to think, wouldn't it!" he growled, no longer in fear of the detective's strength, and glared into the stoic face above him. If I were to describe it now, I might say he was a runt ferret staring down the likes of a pouncing crocodile.

David ran a hand through his hair and turned his gaze away from Lars, instead focusing it on the arriving sun. "I can't blame a man for his concern. There is a place for me, and it is not here." He took my hand in his palm and bent to kiss it, sending shivers down my limbs and out my toes. "It was a pleasure meeting you once again, Missy. I look forward to our next meeting."

Before I could protest, his broad shoulders were swaying away and clumping down the street, just as indifferent as he had been when arriving.

When I was sure he was out of sight, I whipped to Lars, my face blooming red. "It was already painful enough for him to show no staggering emotion toward me," I stuttered, tears beginning to form, "but you had to scare him off? Did I not tell you how magnificent he was? Did I not specify what I wanted with him!"

"You barely know him!" Lars retorted though it was a hesitant response. He was unsure whether his logical perspective was worth upsetting me further. "It might have been him to slip you something! He may have lied to take advantage of you!"

"All I wanted was for this night of sorrow to end the way I needed it to! I needed the distraction-- the pain to ease! And you stomped your jealous boot over my chance!"

"Jealous!" He thrust his hands to the sky, taking with them the sugar over his previous statements. "I am not jealous of that man! Why would I ever be jealous of someone so pitifully unable to emote? What I am is worried. And it is a justified worry! You have put too much trust in a stranger!"

How his knowledge foiled me! I had forgotten the man was of suitable intellect and often was correct to assume the common outcome; however, in such an emotional state, what I heard was not his logic but an attack.

The tears overtook me then, bubbling over my ducts and singeing the oncoming dawn. "Maybe you just do not understand sorrow, Lars, but it destroys you! When my closest friend cannot ease my pain, I take to strangers! When you cannot be there, then he will!"

My words slapped him across the face multiple times, never stopping to allow him breath. It bruised him-- burned him-- to the point of his collapse on the road. Even then, when his vulnerability was displayed, they would not stop. Again and again he was struck till his cries began and a shaking dressed his body in grief. No amount of beating could have done such damage as this.

"What have I been to you?" he murmured, failing to control the sobs escaping his battered lips. "Was I not good enough? Did I not give you everything I could? Why must you feel no remorse?"

Horror stroked my skin. I could only stare at the broken man on the street, never speaking a word. Silently, with the hand of Death guiding me, I stole inside the apartment, leaving Lars stranded and hopeless behind me.