Page 99 of We Were Eternal Once

“Something like that,” I agreed.

When we are done, the crowd claps and whoops and I return to Réka. She wraps her arms around me and pulls me close, pressing her lips to my neck.

“I love your voice,” she says.

“It is too loud in here,” I say.

“It is loud everywhere,” she replies.

“Not everywhere.”

I take her to my home. I’ve brought no one here since I claimed it. The invasion of the cult in Alexandria, the woman in our sitting room in Paris…I cannot have that. My home is my home, and I will not have anyone in it.

Réka looks around the space, her eyebrows climbing up her face.

“How did you get this?” she asks.

“I killed the first owner,” I say. She laughs, shaking her head.

“You are very funny sometimes. How do you joke without a laugh?”

Then she pulls me against her and presses her lips to mine. I knew this was coming. I’d watched her gravitate closer with a mix of dread and apprehension. I’ve longed for the comfort of closeness of another. When I fall asleep in the morning, my fingers reach for someone that isn’t there. I wake with my hands curled in my grave dirt.

I kiss her back, and I wait to understand what it is I feel. I wait for arousal or clarity or or or…something.

I wait to feel something other than empty.

Réka does not bring that clarity. Even as her mouth moves along my jaw to my neck and her hand slides under my shirt to caress my breast—I feel nothing.

When her teeth graze my collarbone, I think of you.

You, with your head between my legs, your teeth in my inner thigh.

You, watching this, your lips turned down in disapproval.

I push away from Réka. She blinks at me with swollen lips and hooded eyes.

“Are you not…?” she begins.

“Silence,” I say. Her jaw closes, her eyes unfocused. I pace the room and run my hands through my short hair. I feel your eyes on me, I feel you on my skin, I feel you in the bit of saliva left on my collarbone.

I wheel on Réka.

“You do not know where I live. We parted in the street. I told you I’m leaving for America. You wished me well. You will miss me, but it will fade. I am just another woman.”

“You are just another woman,” she repeats.

This is my problem, I realize. I have walked the known world with you, I must visit the world unknown. There is another half I’ve not seen, another half untouched by the memory of you.

I will go to America, because the only way to the other side of you is through.

Mississippi, 1996

Idid not want to get in the box. I stared at it for a long time, trying not to think of another box from another time. There is no hope of drowning in this one. If the plane crashes, I will burst into flames and die instantly. It is the only thing that encourages me to get in it.

I fill the box with grave dirt and sit in it for a few days with the top open. The flight is not several days, just many hours. I will be asleep for most of it.

I tell myself these things, and then I compel humans to box me up and put me on an aeroplane destined for New York City. It is a port of entry to the United States of America. I watched my sitcoms and read my histories of the USA.