The Elementals (18 page)

I closed my eyes and saw the llama in my mind. John was holding a little girl in his arms, holding her out to see the creature.

“Ariel.” The way he said my name, in his deep voice, with such urgency, delighted and startled me at the same time. He lifted me gently off his lap and held me against his chest. “I want you to know that Tania and Perry and I have already discussed this and we want you to stay here with us if you want to. There’s an extra room. You can move in whenever you want.”

That was all I needed to melt the rest of the way. Any resistance was gone. “Thank you,” I whispered.

He took my chin in his hand and brought my mouth to his. The sweet, salty warmth of the kiss flooded my entire body. I clung to him and we fed as if we were starving. My hands flickered over the breadth of his shoulder, down his back; there was a pool of dampness that had soaked through his shirt at the base of his spine. I held onto his hips, massaged his thighs. He moaned and his head went back a little. I kissed the cleft in his chin, his throat. My face was prickling with the scratch of his stubble. He rolled me over on my back and gently lifted my T-shirt up, kissing my belly, which convulsed with pleasure at the touch of his lips. It seemed as if my organs were right beneath the surface of his hands, that he could almost touch them.

As he moved toward my breasts they ached the way I’d imagine a new mother’s felt and I forgot about the marks. If anything, I was glad to have a reminder of him on my body. He kissed my nipples, sucking gently with his lips, then using his whole mouth and his hands to massage the flesh. I arched up, offering him more. I felt energy crackling back and forth between us like lines of electricity. I gasped, louder than I’d meant to.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Ariel?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Can I keep kissing you?”

I put my fingers deep into the cool of his hair in answer, guiding his head lower down.

He sighed, working his way over my belly to the patch of hair between my legs. I had always kept it natural until once when Lauren, who shaved almost everything off, had stared at me in disgust when I was changing. I’d started shaving then, although not as much as she did. I was glad that he’d be able to get to more of me, though, and I thought,
I’m actually grateful to Lauren right now,
and then I had to repress a laugh.

“Does it tickle?”

I took his face in my hands. “No, it doesn’t tickle. Don’t stop, please.”

He put his head back down and ran his tongue lightly over the top and center of my opening.
Raspberry Swirl,
I thought, like the Tori song. I pressed up against him, everything that was me focused in that one part of my body that was now his. With one finger he delicately parted me and felt inside for the swollen inner wall while he continued to kiss …

*   *   *

The girl crouched at the edge of the cliff. She was shrouded in a dark cloak, her head bent so I couldn’t see her face. She was shivering. The sky was filled with stars like pieces of broken jewels and the sea below the precipice was like tatters and shreds of dark silk. The girl was weeping and her tears mixed with the drops of saltwater that the wind lashed against her cheeks.

Then the girl was in the room with me and John. She sat in the corner and I could hear her weeping.

I realized that she was a part of me, a lost part, the part that had left when Jeni did.

I wanted her to come back—I stretched out my arms as John kissed and caressed me—but she shook her head.

*   *   *

Tears slid down my face and I tried to stifle a small sob. John stopped kissing me. He lay his cheek on my pelvis, then slid up and took me in his arms, held me until my breathing regulated and I snuggled closer against him.

“How are you doing?”

“Still scared.”

“About Jeni?”

I nodded against his chest.

“I know.” He paused, stroking my hair. “Are you scared of this?”

I shook my head.

“Because you’re safe here,” he said. “Maybe we can help you look for her.”

I sighed and buried my face into his neck. I was only eighteen years old but it felt like I had been waiting for John Graves for centuries. I had found him but the waiting was not over.

*   *   *

After we had dozed for a while we woke at what seemed like the same time. The candles he’d lit had almost burned down to nothing, their flames flaring defiantly in the last moments of their lives, but the lamps were still on, bathing the room in verdant light.

John propped himself up on his elbow. His chest seemed paler than usual, almost glowing in the darkness. There was a vulnerability about it, especially at the center. He looked very thin suddenly in spite of the breadth.

I felt the hardness in my throat that was the first sign of more tears and I tried to dry-swallow it down like a pill but it wouldn’t move.

He sat up the rest of the way and gestured for me to come into his arms. I wriggled up and pressed my head on his chest. Our eyes met and I felt a tremble of emotion move through my body, from deep inside, out.

And then Tania came through the door.

She stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the hallway. Her hair was combed back away from her face and she wore a long red satin slip trimmed in lace. The roses clambering over her shoulders looked almost real. I had never seen her so beautiful and I wanted her to leave and I wanted her to come and sit beside me.

“Am I interrupting anything?” she asked. Her accent seemed slightly more noticeable than usual.

“Yes,” said John but she entered anyway and one of my wishes came true; she sat next to us on the bed and flicked off one of the lamps so that the room darkened. Somehow this seemed odd to me—why did she want less light?

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was feeling lonely. Perry went out.” Her natural pout was even more exaggerated.

John pulled the sheet up over his stomach. “You can’t just walk in like that,” he said spikily.

She ignored him and turned to me. “Sylph? Are you all right?” She stroked the side of my face with her soft hand. I felt myself leaning into her without meaning to. “Are you still upset about Eamon?”

“Of course she is,” said John, the barbed tone of his voice catching on the air.

“Tell me what you’re feeling, baby.” Tania tucked her feet up under her in a cross-legged position and watched me carefully. She had never called me that before. I realized for the first time that I was naked and I reached for my T-shirt and held it over my breasts.

“It doesn’t make sense.”

Tania touched my leg under the sheet. “That must have been terrible for you,” she said.

“Tania…” John’s voice had a warning tone but she didn’t pay any attention.

“I’m so sorry,” Tania went on, speaking just to me. “I think that when things happen like that it can do weird things to us. To our minds. It’s a kind of survival mechanism. That happened to me when…” She paused. “We’ve all had losses,” she went on, her eyes flicking sideways at John, who turned his face away. “I think when people leave it does things. Believe me, I know. You can even have actual visions of the eidolon. It’s very powerful.”

“Eidolon?” Like on the flyer from the Halloween party.

“It’s from Poe. The image of someone that appears to us after they die. A kind of ghost. Perhaps a psychological phenomenon. Though, some would argue, not.”

“Are you saying I didn’t see her in the painting?”

“No, I’m not saying that. Eamon could have seen her picture in the papers. But I’m just saying that the mind is a magician, too. Especially the truly artistic mind.”

My mind, the artistic mind, like hers. How did she always know exactly what to say?

She stroked my hair again. “Johnny? Did you ask Ariel if she wanted to come live here?”

I was suddenly afraid he’d retract the invitation so I spoke quickly, too quickly. “He did. Thank you so much.”

“And you’ll stay then? Dorms can be nasty. I was miserable until I met my kin here.”

John reached out and held my wrist, right at the pulse. “She needs to think about it,” he said. “Right, Ariel.” It wasn’t exactly a question.

I looked over my shoulder at him. His brow was creased with worry. If I lived with them I could have every sensual pleasure I had ever wanted. “I want to stay,” I said. “If it’s still okay with you.”

“Of course it is,” she said. She stood up and smoothed silk slip over sharp hip bones. “Now I’ll give you two some privacy.”

And she was gone.

*   *   *

After Tania left I fell asleep in John’s arms. We slept restlessly, heating up under the blankets, tossing them off, our bodies reaching for each other while we dreamed and then woke again. Arousal shimmered along the surface of our skins until it was overcome by fatigue and dissipated for a little while again.

I fell asleep thinking,
You are going to live here; you are going to be free.

*   *   *

The next evening we woke and John wrapped me in a blanket, lifted me in his arms and carried me into the bathroom. He had run a tub full of bubbles that smelled like lavender.

“What time is it?” I asked, yawning.

“Almost dinnertime.”

“I slept all day.”

He smiled. “You’re catching on to our schedule.”

“It won’t work. I have to go to class. And finals.”

“We have something that will help with that,” he said. “Besides, I won’t keep you up all night all the time.”

He pushed his boxers down off his hips and stepped into the water, then lowered himself modestly beneath the bubbles. His eyes watched me closely. I put my arms over my breasts, turned my back to him and got in, too. I leaned back against his shins and closed my eyes. The room was filled with steam, smoking the mirrors. This was the bathroom where I’d gone when I’d first been looking for Jeni in the house. I could vaguely make out letters written with a finger on the glass. It looked like it said
Diaspora.

“What’s that? Are you guys trying to improve my vocabulary or something?”

He smiled. “Tania might be. It’s one of her favorite words. She says she feels like she’s not quite human. Like we’re all part of this other race that’s been displaced and relocated.”

“I get it,” I said. “Sometimes I feel like that.”

“You’re one of us.”

I sank back against him, sighed and closed my eyes. He soaped my shoulders and back and I put my feet up on the edge of the bath and studied my toes. Even they suddenly looked like sex to me. John moved his legs and put them around me so that I slipped back against his chest. I could feel his erection pressing; I tilted my mouth up and he bent over and kissed me with a succession of deep but light kisses, moving his mouth away slightly for breaths between them.

“You gave me so much pleasure,” I said. “I want to do something for you but I’m scared I won’t do it right.”

“There’s no right or wrong.”

I sat up and turned to face him. His hair hung in his eyes and his cheeks were flushed.

“I want you to show me,” I said. “Please show me.” I took his hands and pressed the palms together, kissed his fingertips. Then I gently moved them down onto his groin.

“You want me to touch myself?” he asked. He sounded shy. I felt my nipples tingle.

I nodded.

John’s eyes stayed focused on mine as he took himself in his hand and stroked lightly, then more firmly and quickly, his thumb moving back and forth over the underside of the tip, other hand working, too. I was wet again, feeling the slickness even in the surrounding water. I licked the drops of water off my lips and kept my gaze on his face, then let it drop to his moving hands.

“Will you kiss me?” he asked. He shuddered softly and his eyes rolled back.

I slid toward him and took his face in my fingers, brought his mouth to mine. He suddenly seemed so helpless. It scared and excited me; what was this I felt—power? I kissed him harder. He sighed like a girl and whispered my name.

When he came I could feel it rocking my own body from the inside out, even though only our mouths were touching. Relief coursed through me. It felt, again, as if I had been waiting for him forever but also as if my own body had been pent up, holding semen that was only now being released. I had forgotten who was who.

We rested in the bath for a while and then we got out and wrapped each other in large, soft towels and dressed. I wore a white shirt of John’s with my jeans. We entered the parlor barefoot, our hair still wet. Perry and Tania were sitting on the couch. The evening light through the windows had a white glow, against which the branches of the trees looked stark and black.

“There you are! We made dinner,” Perry said. “No more malnourishment for you, young lady.”

“Shall we eat outside?” Tania asked.

We took our vegetable curry, samosas and cucumber raita out into the garden. I hadn’t been there in the light before. It looked much less haunted than the night I had stood naked before them. There was a small table set up in the gazebo of worn latticework, under the cascading wisteria and trumpet vines, and we ate there. Berkeley in the spring smells like flowers—roses and jasmine and fruit blossoms. The air was almost as delicious tasting as the food. I looked around at the ornamental plum, persimmon and lemon trees, up at the sky starting to twinkle, and I realized that this was where I would be living, in this house, with them.

“How do you grow plants like this?” I asked them.

Tania grabbed Perry’s hands and held them up. “Old green thumb, here.” So that was what the green nail polish was. I should have known. “He can make flowers bloom with a wave.”

Perry wiggled his fingers almost lasciviously at me until I laughed.

After dinner we sat on a blanket on the mossy ground drinking our wine and Perry took out a joint and lit it, passed it to me. The smoke was smooth and fragrant in my lungs.

“This will help you through finals,” Perry said. “We’ll give you a stash.”

“You guys think of everything.”

“Here to serve.” The look John gave me made me feel like he had slid his hand between my thighs.

“So you’ll be our roommate?” Tania asked.