As Black as Ebony (4 page)

Every hit and every kick had to strike the opponent in a way that significantly reduced his fighting effectiveness. Halfhearted attacks were pointless. They just consumed energy without helping to vanquish your enemy.

Lumikki squeezed her fingers into a fist. Left, left, right. Left, left, right. And remember to block. Keep moving.

How blood starts flowing from a nose when it comes into contact with a fist. How a cheekbone breaks when a sharp kick hits it. The opponent’s legs give way. He falls. He is at your mercy.

Suddenly, Lumikki couldn’t go on. Her feet wouldn’t budge. The others continued moving to the thumping music of the Combat session, following the trainer’s shouted commands, but Lumikki couldn’t aim another single strike at her imaginary foe. Of course, this was just aerobics, a group exercise class spiced up with a little faux martial arts, but right now the mental images were too much.

Before her eyes, Lumikki saw Anna-Sofia and Vanessa lying in the snow, beaten to within an inch of their lives. No, that hadn’t really happened, but she still imagined it that way. Was “Shadow” right? Did she still want revenge on those girls?

Lumikki had thought that coming to Combat would take her mind off the notes, but that hadn’t happened. The music thundered in the gym. The air stank of sweat. A few others started casting irritated glances at Lumikki because she was just standing in the middle of the room, resting her arms on her knees.
Get out of the way
, their eyes said.

As soon as her legs felt like they would carry her, Lumikki started weaving her way through the crowd. She didn’t even bother saying sorry when she bumped into a few of the other girls enthusiastically hitting and kicking at the air. After making it to the locker room, Lumikki headed straight for the toilet. She barely got the door latched and the lid up before the vomit gushed out of her mouth. Lumikki held the sides of the bowl, retching pieces of goat cheese lasagna. Her whole body shook. Lumikki didn’t remember when she had last thrown up. It felt just as horrible as ever.

In the shower, Lumikki was alone. She could still hear the Combat class outside. Coming here had been a bad idea. She would have to find some other way to clear her mind. Lumikki stood under the warm water long after all of the shampoo and soap was rinsed from her hair and skin. The wetness of the water was a caress. It was an embrace she could take momentary refuge in.

Lumikki tried to pinpoint the department store speakers playing the saccharine song. She hoped that if she could cast them a sufficiently searing glance, the worst Christmas ditty in the history of kitsch would end as the speakers burst into flames. Wham! released “Last Christmas” in 1984. Wasn’t it about time for it to crawl off to the pop song graveyard and die?

Apparently, department stores thought differently. Maybe somewhere someone had done a study and found that of all the horrible Christmas songs ever written, this was the one that made people spend the most. The bitterness and pain of a broken heart, the desire for revenge, and the thought that, this Christmas, I’ll give my gifts to someone special who knows how to value them. I’ll buy the most beautiful ones. I’ll buy the most expensive ones. I’ll prove my love with such a big pile of cash that no one will be able to doubt the sincerity of my feelings. But at the same time, those shoppers relishing the singer’s bittersweet wistfulness, knowing his broken heart still beats for the one who shattered it.

Lumikki hated this song. She hated the pre-Christmas rush. The real and imagined glitter that rested on everything was meant to mimic snow, but really looked more like sugar frosting. The Christmas of department stores was the one you saw in American romantic comedies where they condensed a lifetime of sappy love and togetherness into a few winter days when everything was perfect just so long as the sets and props were just so. There was a fire in the hearth and mistletoe and glittering gold and fake snow and an enormous mountain of perfectly chosen presents piled and a full Christmas dinner and fuzzy socks and handmade chocolates and Christmas carols and the scent of cinnamon and ginger and everything so perfect you could almost gag.

That was the Christmas dream the department stores sold, and the Tampere Stockmann was no exception.

Lumikki also hated buying Christmas presents because it felt so fake. She would prefer to give gifts when she felt like it, no matter what the date was. Buying Christmas presents was a ritual you had to perform because it was expected. Lumikki knew she couldn’t not buy Sampsa a present. But she also knew the distress she would feel the moment she received some beautiful, carefully chosen, thoughtful gift and all she had for him was something pointless and impersonal she had bought in a panic. Because Lumikki had already noticed Sampsa was a gift giver. By some incredible instinct, the boy had already managed to give her the perfect necklace, a simple silver chain with a small black stone pendant; the world’s best notebook; and a pair of half-finger gloves Lumikki always wore at home when a cold gale was blowing through the chinks in the window.

Sampsa gave his gifts lightly, without making a big deal about it. He gave gifts the way the best gifts were given, without the slightest expectation of receiving anything in return. He knew how to do it in a way that the other person never felt indebted or guilty. Lumikki respected that so much, but she knew she couldn’t skip Christmas.

Right now, it also felt necessary to be surrounded by all these painfully bright lights and exhaustingly cheery songs. To shut the stalker’s letters out of her mind. Lumikki didn’t know what she should do about them, and because she couldn’t stand uncertainty, she tried to forget about it. At least for a while. Maybe her subconscious was working on a solution.

“What is up with all this chintzy crap?” a voice asked behind Lumikki.

Turning, Lumikki saw Tinka and Aleksi. It was strange to see them together on a Saturday, outside of school. Lumikki had been under the impression they didn’t really get along.

“Who would be crazy enough to actually buy something like this?” Aleksi asked.

He was pointing at what had to be intended as a centerpiece: a blinking, red “I Love You” sign.

“Just imagine waking up in the middle of the night to the doorbell ringing and finding something like that sitting outside!” Tinka said, laughing. “I’d be scared out of my mind.”

Lumikki shivered.

“I’m starting to think this might not be the best place to do my Christmas shopping,” she said, trying to keep her tone light.

“Looking for something for Sampsa?” Tinka asked quickly.

Lumikki nodded.

“Lucky boy. I’m sure you’ll find the perfect present for him.”

Lumikki thought there was a strangely melancholy shade to Tinka’s smile. She didn’t have the time or interest to start analyzing that now though.

“Have fun shopping!” Lumikki said and then left before the others could suggest they shop together.

Lumikki left the Stockmann Christmas department and continued down the escalator to the bottom floor. Maybe she would find something in the book department. The fact that she wasn’t seeing anything she thought Sampsa would like was discouraging. Did she really know her boyfriend this poorly? Lumikki didn’t want to believe that was the problem. It was just that the whole buy buy buy pressure always made her shut down. It made everything look stupid and tasteless.

Lumikki’s hand stroked the covers of the books absentmindedly. None of them seemed to whisper Sampsa’s name.

“We have to stop meeting this way.”

The hairs on Lumikki’s arms instantly stood on end. Blaze was standing next to her.

“This is twice in less than a week. It must be fate. Maybe now I can tempt you with a cup of coffee?”

Lumikki looked into Blaze’s laughing eyes and felt herself nodding before she had time to think.

Two hours and four big cups of coffee later, Lumikki wondered where the past year had gone. It felt like she and Blaze had just picked up where they left off. Or maybe not there, exactly, not at the agonizing, final moments of their breakup. A little before, when words still flowed between them naturally and unforced. Now they were sitting at Lumikki’s kitchen table again, just like they used to. Drinking coffee. Talking.

“Every day I’m happier and more whole,” Blaze said, and Lumikki could see from his direct, placid gaze that he was telling the truth.

Blaze had only told her a little about the details of the sex reassignment process, and Lumikki hadn’t asked because she respected Blaze’s decision to only share what he felt good sharing. This was about Blaze’s body, his own physical essence.

“But I needed all the loneliness and isolation. It helped me go on because it made me strong. I know I hurt you so much, and I want to apologize for that.”

There was an honest brightness to Blaze’s words. Lumikki still couldn’t reply though because she didn’t have the words.

Instead, Lumikki told him about everything that had happened over the previous winter and summer: the crimes she had gotten mixed up in, the danger and all the running, how close death had been.

“I read about the thing in Prague in the newspaper. That was crazy,” Blaze said, shaking his head.

“I seem to have a habit of getting into dangerous situations,” Lumikki tried to joke, but she couldn’t force a smile.

Quickly, she tried to cover her anxiety by taking a big gulp of the coffee that was already lukewarm. That always happened to them. They barely noticed as their coffee grew cold, they had so much to say.

But Lumikki didn’t tell Blaze about remembering that she used to have a sister. And of course, nothing about the harassing letters, even though she wished she could share the burden with someone.

She couldn’t take the risk that this “shadow” would make good on the bloody images he painted in his messages.

Lumikki saw how what she was saying affected Blaze. She saw the desire to protect her that sparked in his eyes. She saw how Blaze’s hand inched across the table toward her own, ready to grab it.

“Oh, and I have a boyfriend,” Lumikki quickly added.

Blaze pulled his hand back and picked up his coffee cup, feigning nonchalance.

“That’s great,” he said with a slanted smile.

Lumikki hurried to tell him about all of Sampsa’s wonderful qualities. Blaze listened calmly. His expression seemed to say that he didn’t consider this boy a particularly important factor in Lumikki’s life. Lumikki was a bit offended. Did Blaze really think he could just waltz back into her life after pulling a stunt like disappearing for a year and that Lumikki would accept him with open arms and forget everything?

If he did, he had an infuriating amount of nerve. And he was wrong.

Blaze got up to get a glass of water. When he returned to the table, instead of sitting down, he pressed his hands to Lumikki’s shoulders and began massaging them as if that were perfectly natural.

“You’re all knotted up,” he said.

Lumikki only managed a vague mumble in reply. She knew she should ask Blaze to stop. Theoretically, a shoulder rub was just innocent touching between friends, but they weren’t friends. Not only. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But Lumikki didn’t ask Blaze to stop because the rubbing felt so good and her shoulders really were tighter than they had ever been before. Blaze’s familiar, deft touch made them relax, and Lumikki could feel her blood flow improving as the clenching in her muscles eased. Blaze’s hands were warm and their pressure was both gentle and purposeful. He didn’t try to force her muscles into submission. First, he massaged lightly, then gradually pressed harder and deeper. He stopped at the tightest spots and took the time to warm them under his fingers.

Neither of them said anything.

Florence and the Machine played in the background, singing about bruised bodies burning with passionate fire. Lumikki regretted her choice of music. But not really. She had known what she was doing when she put Florence on. She had known what mood it would create.

Blaze’s touch made Lumikki slip into a sweet, almost dreamlike state. For a moment, she could forget everything else. The fear. The anxiety. She didn’t need to think about anything. The languid relaxation and warmth spread from her shoulders down.

Lumikki didn’t know how long had passed when she realized the massage had changed. Now it was more caressing. Blaze gently stroked her neck, and every brush of his hand made shivers run down Lumikki’s spine, and beyond. Gradually, the relaxation melted away, replaced by a burning fire. Blaze’s hands caressed the sides of her neck and her earlobes, and then returned to the nape of her neck. Warm breath against Lumikki’s skin.

The two of them against each other, chest to chest, breath heavy, lips touching.

The two of them in the shower, bare, slick skin, wet, the hard tile wall behind her back, sounds echoing in the small room.

The two of them on Lumikki’s bed, the tangled sheets, the panting, the teeth on her shoulder, the cries they couldn’t hold back.

The two of them in their own forest, surrounded by the scent of pine, hidden, concealed in the shadows, clinging to each other, lost in each other, and somewhere far away, far above, in the branches, the twinkling light of the stars.

Lumikki snapped out of her daydream. Quickly, she stood up and stepped away from Blaze.

“You need to go now.”

Lumikki stared past Blaze with determination. She couldn’t take the risk of looking him in the eyes. If she did, she might not have the strength to send him away.

Blaze didn’t argue. Calmly, he went to the entryway and dressed in silence for the cold outside. But at the door, he turned and smiled.

“I’ll see you again soon, my princess. You know it as well as I do. We can’t stay away from each other for long.”

Then he left without waiting for Lumikki’s reply.

Lumikki stood, staring at the door. She knew that Blaze was right.