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So many emotions and I couldn’t let them out. I settled for stating the obvious.
“Livvie, I’ll forgive you whatever the hell you want. You don’t need my forgiveness; you never have to ask for it. It’s yours, Livvie. Anything that’s mine to give is already yours.” I placed my fingers in her hair and tilted her face up to mine. Her lips were salty with tears, her mouth tasted like smoke, but beyond that there was just Livvie. I needed Livvie.
In my best interpretation of every superhero movie I’d ever seen (and I hadn’t seen too many by that time), I lifted Livvie into my arms and carried her inside. She kindly gave me directions to her bedroom. We made love on her pastel-yellow sheets amidst a ridiculous amount of throw pillows.
***
Later, after we’d finished having sex, Livvie engaged me in conversation. It reminded me of Mexico. We had always been better in the dark. I’m going to spare you and, admittedly, myself the agony of the details of what happened after we finished making love. You know what Livvie went through. You know the truth about my past. After that night, I knew it too.
I learned my name had been James Cole. I had been born to an American named Elizabeth Cole and a man known only as Vlad. I was five when I’d been kidnapped and sent to live as a whore. My mother killed herself when I was twelve. I couldn’t help but take notice I’d been taken under Rafiq’s care around the same time. I wondered if he’d known my mother was dead when he’d decided to “rescue” me.
I couldn’t remember her face. I would always remember Rafiq’s. Meanwhile a voice nagged me: Vladek is your father. Your father is still alive.
“Are you okay?” Livvie whispered against my neck. I could feel her tears dripping on me. I could feel her arm wrapped tightly around my chest. I could feel her heart beating against my ribs.
I felt. I fucking felt and it was awful.
I pulled her close and ran my fingers across the small of her back, taking whatever comfort I could find in having her close to me. She was alive. I was alive. We were together. I tried to focus on that.
“No, Kitten. I’m not okay,” I whispered. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to be okay. I just know that as long as you’re with me, there’s a chance that one day… I might be.”
She squeezed me. So much was trapped inside me, and her love—or whatever it was she felt for me —threatened to coax it out. I fought to keep it all inside, where I could control it and no one could use it against me. My life was fucked up. It always had been. There was no point in dwelling on things I couldn’t control or change. My mother was dead. Rafiq was dead. Livvie and I were alive. End of fucking pity party.
“I’m so sorry, Caleb,” she sobbed. I closed my eyes to blink the burning and stinging away. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I swallowed hard.
“I wish that were true. Once, it may have been, but it stopped being true a long time ago. I did what I did, Livvie. It was my fault.” We were quiet for a minute as the words settled. There was something I needed to know. “Livvie, why did you change your last name to Cole? Was it for James? Or… me?”
“Caleb, I know who you are. It doesn’t matter what I call you as long as it’s what you want.” She sighed. “I did it because…” She shifted uncomfortably.
“You loved me.” I closed my eyes. “Trust me—I didn’t miss the past tense. I understand.” I didn’t understand.
“Caleb, it’s not…” she whispered and pressed closer. “It’s just… what you said about change. We’re changing. We’re both different, and until we know what that means, I don’t think—”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Livvie. I just want to be here. Right now. With you. Fuck the rest of it, because I don’t care. If there’s anything else you need to tell me, please do it now. Let’s get it over with and tomorrow we can start over. I want to start over, Livvie. Can we do that?” I kept stroking her back. It kept me grounded.
“I’d like that. But what will we tell people? We can’t tell them the truth, and I can’t leave my life behind again, Caleb.”
“What about the FBI? Are they still watching you?” I had a momentary flash of rage as I imagined coming face to face with Agent Reed. I’d pound his face into the ground—present tense!
“I’m supposed to meet Reed on Thursday. I know you don’t like him. Hell, I’m not sure I like him.” I could hear the smile in her voice and it irritated me. She’d compared him to me one too many times. “But he’s a good guy. He wanted to check on me since I told him I felt like someone was watching me. Aside from him and Sloan, I don’t deal with the FBI. I don’t have anything they want.” She nudged my ribs. I sighed.
“Well, you didn’t. You do now. With any luck you’ll be able to get rid of Reed easily. Tell him you have a secret admirer from school or something. I’m sure you do anyway. If you tell him there’s nothing for him to look into, he’ll be suspicious.” A voice in my head asked me if I could get away with getting rid of him for good. I calmly ignored it. I was determined to be someone different. I didn’t want to be a killer anymore.
“Okay, but what about the other stuff?”
“One day at a time, Livvie. I’m not ready to start explaining our relationship any more than you are. Let’s take our time coming up with our story.”
She propped herself on her elbow and leaned down to kiss my chest. She wiped at the wetness she had left on my shoulder.
“I swear I’ve done more crying in the past two days than I’ve done in the past year.” She smiled. “I think I’m done now. I really didn’t want to have to tell you all that stuff. It broke my damn heart when I had to hear it from Reed, but you deserve to know about your past.” Her gaze traveled from my eyes to my chest. She stroked me casually with her fingers. “The way you looked that day… he wasn’t worthy of your grief.”
I placed my hand on top of hers and cleared my throat.
“It’s over. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Her expression turned playfully wistful.
“If you’d have found me sooner, we could have celebrated your birthday. I lit a candle for you last month. I had to eat the cake myself.” She smiled. Her words were strange to me, but I laughed too.
“What kind of cake?”
“German chocolate. It was soooo good,” she groaned. I smiled, and at last it was truly genuine.
“Well, it’s just as well. I don’t eat a lot of cake.”
“I do! Then again, I’m eight years younger than you and my metabolism can handle it. You have to watch your handsome figure.” Her hand shifted down my chest and rubbed my abdomen.
“I think I do alright,” I said. I wasn’t shy about my body. I had no reason to be. “So weird to have a birthday, though. Do you think I look twenty-seven?”
Her smile was coquettish.
“I think you look… delicious!” Her hand traveled further down my abdomen until she brushed my cock with her fingers.
“Delicious, huh? That’s a new one. I was thinking virile, or the male personification of perfection.”
She laughed out loud. Her laugh was infectious. I loved the way it was a little too loud to be lady-like.
“Oh, Caleb. You’re those things too. But right now? I’m more interested in your tastiness.” She slid down on the bed and took my cock in her hand.
“Oh! Well in that case… taste away. If you have any more cake, I’d be happy to provide the frosting.” She wrinkled her nose and I laughed.
I lay back and let Livvie blow more than my mind.
CHAPTER FIVE
Livvie’s meeting with Reed went okay. He wasn’t an idiot though, Livvie recounted to me. He wanted to hang around for a few days and make sure Livvie was safe. I didn’t like him. I suspected his visit had more to do with uncovering secrets than keeping Livvie safe.
He spoke to Livvie’s friends, her co-workers, even the kid at the restaurant Livvie liked to go to. It was a good thing I had paid someone to give my note to the waiter. If he’d g
iven Reed my description, we would have been pretty screwed. It took a great amount of will power to steer clear of him. I knew there were certain things Livvie would not forgive.
Livvie and I had no contact during Reed’s visit. I discovered more nightmares and a level of boredom I had never experienced before in my life. I was grateful for the internet until I was unable to resist doing a search for “Missing child+James Cole”.
There were a couple of results, but nothing that jumped out at me. I was kidnapped before the internet had become commonplace, before Twitter and Facebook, and 24-hour news. Back then, milk cartons and mailers were the best people could do. James Cole never stood a chance.
That night I dreamt I was trapped inside a child’s body. I was with Narweh again and my strength meant nothing. He laughed at me. I didn’t go online for a week.
I never like it when I dream. It’s usually about things I’d rather not think about. When I was a young boy and worked in the brothel, I never dreamed. At least, not that I can recall. There were mornings when I would wake and have new and interesting ways to murder Narweh when the time came—but I never attributed them to my dreams.
The first dreams I can recall began when Rafiq brought me to live with him. The uncertainty of my new fate had the tendency to terrify me. I have never felt comfortable sharing my feelings—especially my doubts, fears, hopes, and desires. They are what make me vulnerable and more than anything, I hate being vulnerable. Once Rafiq had gained my trust, once he had given me a destiny and a purpose, I didn’t dream so much.
The dreams resurfaced in the weeks following Livvie’s kidnapping. I had dismissed them at the time. I knew I was conflicted over many things: My desire to move on with my life. My confusion over Rafiq’s increasing secrecy. The nagging sense of doubt over kidnapping Livvie. The fear I was becoming Narweh. The dreams intensified the more my feelings for Livvie had begun to develop. I denied it then. I see it now.
The nightmares I had after I left Livvie at the U.S.–Mexico border were some of the worst I have ever had. If you know anything about me—and we’ve well established you do—then you can perhaps imagine the horrors I had to choose from. The truth is, I don’t let these things, the horrors of my past, drag me under. Quite the contrary—for so very long, they fueled me. Considering what I’ve been through, I often think I’m very well adjusted. I can handle anything the world throws at me, but for someone who tries to plan his moves ahead of time, uncertainty about my future leaves me disturbed as nothing else.
I thought finding Livvie would give me certainty, but I was learning that happiness also presents new ways to suffer. Misery, I understand. Happiness is terrifying.
Also, Livvie’s words about “other shit” coming to the fore made sense to me. For the first time in my life I didn’t have anything to do. No one had any expectations of me. I had enough money to do anything and go anywhere, but I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I had idle hands. My mind was the proverbial devil’s playground. It seemed as though everything I had kept tucked away in the dark recesses of my mind was escaping into my consciousness.
I breathed a deep sigh of relief when Reed left Spain and Livvie could finally come back to me. I still had the nightmares, but waking up to her warm body made it easier to come back from the anxiety.
***
It was October, and the weather was becoming unpredictable. On some nights it was the perfect excuse to spend hours in bed. Livvie and I fucked like rabbits—and a few other animals too.
Although Livvie’s presence brought me solace after a nightmare, I hated how weak it made me feel to accept it. Instead, I took to staying up after Livvie went to sleep. I slept while she was out in the world of the living. I still had the dreams, but I didn’t wake up to darkness.
