Chapter Nine
“ARE THERE ALLIGATORS THERE, JAMIE?” A layer of grime framed Bobby's wide blue eyes.
“Yes. And they're a hundred feet long and eat little Irish boys for breakfast.” Packing for his trip was proving both easier and harder than he'd expected. Easy – he had only one small suitcase. Hard – the difficulty in leaving behind his brothers, sisters, Ma and Da.
And Lilith.
“Another one came!” Mikey tore into the room, a year younger than Bobby and as innocent and book smart as Bobby was corrupted by the streets. He waved an envelope eagerly before James and Bobby.
The first letter had come from her three weeks ago, a fine linen paper that James recognized instantly.
He'd ignored it.
Persistent, isn't she? This one he took from Mikey's outstretched hand, snatching it before Bobby could get his grimy hands on it and run into the streets to read it aloud.
“Get, both of you. Give me a few minutes alone.” Soon he'd have as much solitude as he wanted, traveling alone and embarking on an ambitious adventure of his own making.
But he wouldn't find solace.
Not if he kept ignoring her letters.
On his bookshelf sat a small, red book bound with cheap cloth. His journal. He'd tucked her previous letter there and now pulled it out.
The envelope required considerable effort to open; at work he routinely opened such fine paper, but here at home it seemed out of place.
Dear James,
Once again I find myself writing to you in apology for my actions. I've wavered for weeks, wondering whether to send this. My friend Esther urged me, telling me that regret is worse than embarrassment.
I suspect any woman who caries a Mexican rat in her purse about town is not to be trusted with advice in such matters, so your response will tell me whether she is correct.
May we find a way to meet soon? The lecture this Thursday at the Unitarian church in Cambridge is, ironically enough, on the role of hysteria in women. It seems an appropriate venue.
Sincerely,
Lilith
That lecture had passed two weeks ago, and James knew all too well that she had attended, for he had nearly attended as well. That night was a haze, walking into the room and seeing her there, then ducking back so as not to be spotted. Maria had cornered him, asking for some time, and he'd demurred, lying about a work matter. Using Maria to get to her father's money had seemed expedient at the time, a shortcut to riches he could never achieve without help.
Now he realized the true price, and it was higher than he wished. While Maria had never uttered the word “love,” and James shuddered to imagine it, he nonetheless felt something for her, even if it were just scraps of gratitude for access to her father's investment.
And a healthy appreciation for skills few women possessed in carnal matters.
Whatever Maria may have felt for him seemed distant, too incomprehensible to consider. Her cold exterior and calculating eyes made him feel like a pawn in a game. She moved the pieces where she wished and analyzed positions, strategies, strengths and weakness, all with a goal of an end game that gave her pleasure.
But her feelings? For him? If she had them, she'd never hinted at it.
With a slight tremor in his hands, James opened the new letter from Lilith.
Dear James,
Your journey to Chile is pending, and I will throw all proper behavior by the wayside and simply ask you to visit me at my friend Esther Nourse's home on Salem Road in Cambridge tonight after 9 p.m. Use the servant's entrance. I leave my boldness at your mercy and urge you to meet with me, for your pending journey will remove all chance.
Yours,
Lilith
A bold parting gift? How was he supposed to take this? The billionaire's daughter inviting him to his friend's house two days before he boarded a train, then a steamer, for a far-off land? What good would come of this?
The best course was to ignore her letters. He'd done so with the first and no harm had come of it.
Stay the course. Hold strong and continue packing. Selling his few possessions of value, mostly books, had given him pocket money. Selling his one work suit brought a bit more, and those too-tight shoes had gone for a pretty penny. A war chest – more money than he'd ever held at once – rested in his pocket right now, enough to get Lilith as far as the California coast with him.
But no further.
Madness. This was mad thinking, fueled by speculation and this crazy woman who had burrowed into his brain and heart, etching herself in places no one else had dared to reach. He was leaving his home, all his family, and the only place he knew for a foreign land where he spoke only a few words of the native language, where his size and coloring would make him a target, and where he had still to prove himself. Here in Boston he'd only proven himself capable of sleeping with a wealthy man's daughter as a way to better himself.
He'd done that to Maria.
He'd not do that to Lilith as well.
Not, Lilith. No.
Berating himself for a choice he couldn't undo was also madness. The keening in his heart made a palpable beat that thrummed in him, a throbbing worse than too-tight shoes on his feet, more insistent than than Lilith's pulse, like a metronome in one delicate wrist clasped in his baseball-mitt hands. It drove him, like a score written by a composer that lived inside him, writing a melody and harmony that could only be heard when he was with her in body or spirit.
The music swelled within him, teasing and tormenting, brief fragments almost audible on errant breezes, a vibration barely perceptible in the very air around him, accompanying every mundane conversation, every snore and breath and word and grunt of his daily life with Ma and Da.The ebb and flow of life merged with the beat that mercilessly coursed through his veins until he found himself walking toward the subway, colder than he should be, his coat sold off to a cousin. Measure by measure he made his way to Cambridge, allegro and grave fighting to win each instrument's soul, his body the score.
All was cacophony without Lilith, only the cadence decipherable without her, driving him to march toward her, the only conductor who could make the music pitch perfect.
“Are you certain, Esther? I feel that I am asking too much of you.” Lilith switched between excitement and guilt, waiting for James to arrive and wishing her friend would disappear – and take the Mexican rat with her.
“Of course I am certain! I suggested it. The prying eyes in your father's home make it too dangerous, though I give James credit for his fortitude and resourcefulness in breaking into John Stone's home for your earlier rendezvous. The gossips ruined that one already. Even my maid knows.” Esther stroked the head of the chihuahua, making the creature's eyes bulge even more. It looked less like a rat and more like a creature from an H.G. Wells novel.
“Thank you.”
“I hope this meeting is worthwhile, Lilith.” Her voice softened and Esther put the dog down. The tic tic tic of the animal's nails on the Turkish tiles sounded like teeth chattering in the cold. “I suppose this makes me a Madam of sorts.”
“Esther!”
“What other word would you use for a woman who arranges to have another woman gain full freedom to spend the night with a man?”
“A friend.”
Esther smiled, then moved in close to Lilith and whispered, “Anything that angers your father is worthwhile. More important, if James is your true love, then you need this final night before he leaves.”
“I feel so stupid. Dr. Burnham helped me to understand – ”
“It's not about what you understand, Lilith. The question is whether James understands.”
“That's the point! He did! I am the problem.”
Esther's face reddened and her typically calm self shifted to a more primal, angry side. “Dr. Scott was the problem.”
Lilith blinked rapidly, absorbing the words. “Yes, I guess so.”
“And your father knew exactly what he was doing.”
“Yes.”
“Tonight, though, John Stone has no control. He has no control. Your destiny is yours.” Esther nodded, deferring to Lilith. “Mi casa es su casa, as they say in the land where my little Rodrigo originated. I will go off to visit my aunt in Weston and you, Lilith, can have your James.”
A quick hug between the two cemented the deal. Esther picked up her bag, stuffed a whiny Rodrigo in it, and walked to the door. She turned back at the last minute, a sly smile on her face.
“Lilith?”
“Yes?”
“A honeymoon at Niagara Falls might be most appropriate.” She scurried out of the room, crooning sweet words to the rat dog in her purse before Lilith understood the comment, her laughter ribboning down the hall.
I won't chase him. Nine o'clock came and went and now, as the mantel clock ticked its way toward ten, portions of Lilith's heart died with each passing second, hope fading and a thick, metallic taste filling her.
'You already chased him.' The internal voice, so clearly her father's berated her, the words flying so fast they were no longer distinct, simply a raging white-water rapids of berating and shame. 'Of course he won't come. What respectable man would?'
And why did he need Lilith when he had Maria? He simply used women to gain access to their fathers.
The voice was so clear she checked the room, twice, to make sure her father wasn't present.
Yet he was. He lived in her head, silent and crouched, ready to pop out for moments like this.
Boston rat. Ether's words made her grin, neutralizing the fear.
A Boston rat, indeed.
If James never appeared, what was the worst that would happen? He would leave for Chile, she would go home, and in less than a year she would receive her trust, freeing her from her father's financial control. Perhaps she would share Esther's home; her friend had suggested it, and looking around the Cambridge mansion, tightly tucked into a side street behind Harvard Square, she wondered whether freedom meant that her father's voice would disappear.
Right now she wanted to replace it with James' voice. Sweet James, protective and sincere, loving and compassionate. He could provide her with affection and wit, street smarts and passion, everything but money. Yet she would have money, and the unlikely coupling mattered not to anyone but her father and high society. Lilith wouldn't be attending teas and séances if she were married to James. They would have to find their own path, a group of peers so exquisitely class blind as to forge a new social strata. Wracking her brain, she searched her social inventory for poor men married to rich women.
She knew none.
Perhaps she should settle for a chihuahua and dress it in little overcoats.
She could name it James.
Or John.
Esther's butler stepped into the room as if conjured by a spirit. “Miss Stone? You have a courier visit from your father's law firm. A Mr. Hillman.” The butler glanced at the clock. It read 10:22.
“Please send him in.”
The man who entered Esther's parlor was more Yeti than human, with crisp frost on his whiskers. Lilith nearly laughed and cried out in disbelief all at once. “James! Whatever happened to you?”
He seemed surprised by her question, then reached up to touch his mustache. A chiding laugh filled the room. “I didn't think, Lilith. I just started walking and – ” he caught her eye, exhaling slowly, an unbreakable look piercing her and filling her with warmth and expectation. “Here I am.”
“Here you are, indeed, half frozen. You look like a sideshow spectacle.”
“You've attended sideshows?” he mocked, eyebrows nearly to his hairline.
“I've – oh, stop. Get yourself before the fire. Reeves, please fetch Mr. Hillman some tea.”
“I'd like something stronger, if you have it,” James asked, now shivering as he warmed. Lilith poured him two fingers of Scotch and handed him the highball glass, which he drained in one gulp.
She wanted to throw her arms around him and warm him, but he would just as likely chill her. Scotch and a roaring fire would do more for him now than she could. As James crouched before the fire, Lilith arranged her thoughts and emotions, knowing exactly why he was here but uncertain how the next few minutes would – or should – unfold. How a hostess ought to behave with a man she’d invited to her friend’s home to make love was not a predicament she had read about in any of mother's etiquette books.
And “predicament” was hardly the correct word.
Reeves entered the room, deposited the tea tray, and left quickly. Had Esther told him of this tryst? A small chill of shame shot through Lilith. The servants would gossip. Word would get back to her own home's crew, and perhaps one would snitch to her father. Earlier in the evening, she might have cared more. James would depart tomorrow and by the time idle whispers reached the Stone home he would be boarding the train, off for a steamer journey to a land that might as well have been the moon for all Lilith cared.
Watching James sip the scorching tea and warm his hands on the porcelain cup, Lilith cleared her throat nervously and asked, “Are you ridding yourself of the chill?” Formal, as always, her voice and words felt so stilted, yet she could not break out of her habit. Even with this man, who opened her heart and teased her mind and who would leave her for a life's journey that could kill him.
All they had was this. She needed this night, needed the memory they would create, to feed her for the coming months, or keep her sane and even and to give her strength as she moved forward.
More than that, though, she craved him. A tight, polite shell so carefully cultivated by her father and her mother's mores, social graces ingrained in her, served no one in this moment. Yet there it was, suffocating her.
He nodded. “I'm getting warmer.” Smoldering eyes met hers and the heat that radiated through her was unconnected to the fire. Breath quickening, Lilith's hand floated to her collarbone, not to quell a pattering heart but, instead, to calm a flush of lust that screamed within her, willing her to kiss him, to push him back on the ground and take him within her, a compulsion she could see played out in her mind's eye. That the scene was only in her imagination—and not on the carpet under their feet—was thanks to force of will and the gracious training that apparently served her somewhat, after all.
He stood and closed the distance between them with two large steps.
“Lilith.”
He whispered it like a prayer.
And their kiss was the answer.
The room was white. Each blank wall offered freedom and virginity. A new beginning, a blank slate. Lilith could be anyone tonight, anyone including herself. Shocks of excitement and need took the place of fear and doubt. She took James' hand and led him, wordlessly, to her private room.
Cherry furniture filled the latter half of the room, opposite a grand bed with a white duvet. The room was a puzzle, all of the pieces present and fitting properly. The objects did not matter. When she watched him, he became real. As she felt him watching her, she was whole. Nothing had force or meaning except their recognition of each other. The room was cold as her silk shirt slipped from her shoulders. His mouth renewed their connection, a vow they took before they ever met.
James felt his hands shake; why? They were certain of themselves, each other, this night. Atoms wandered in random patterns across time and space. There was no rhyme or reason, no objective formula to explain why or how. Matter was neither created nor destroyed, and yet entropy dictated disintegration. Their atoms, their senses, past choices and present dictates carried them to this place, this time, this now.
He slid Lilith's back along the sweet cotton, his hips pressing her into the bed. When his tongue touched hers it was another signal, a way to tell her he was here to teach, that she was there to learn. He strained to skim the roof of her mouth with his tip, and a light hum emerged deep in her throat. Their muscles worked together to dance without feet, his tongue teaching her to devour, hers instructing him to be complete.
Why was he leaving tomorrow? He groaned at the thought, the sound a chant of despair that turned to love and desire as Lilith reached for him and found him hard and wanting.
The white buttons on his shirt were stubborn, but with minor effort he was soon free. This woman he knew intimately, intellectually, was a physical mystery. Love at first sight, instant passion--there was no such thing. Infatuation and delusion were easy to convince oneself to give up. They were not infatuated. He was not deluded. They did not trip in the rush to bed. Their slow stroll allowed them to appreciate the centuries leading to this moment. Homage was paid to the recombination of atoms, the gratitude that entropy has not yet commenced.
James found that his palm conformed to her ribs, each one a welcome structure encasing her heart. For a few seconds he faded as their blood pumped in synchronous beats. His hands felt each ridge, each wave of skin and sinew, passing over her chest, breastbone, finding flesh and warmth. Three moles jutted from her skin along the slope between ribs and small of back. When he stretched his hand the distance from tip of thumb to tip of small finger trapped one toned buttock. The firm, smooth skin requested a kiss that he granted. As he dotted her backside with his lips he traced her spine with one lazy finger.
Learning her body was a challenge, one that gave him life's work. Yet he had but one night, right here, right now.
Twenty-four years of longing. Lilith had created worlds in her mind, inhabited by men such as him. Fear lingered, even now, in his presence. If the life she built with her imagination came to bear, how could she determine whether it is true? Just as madmen imagine conspiracies and use paranoia to navigate the days, was she using a normal man and conforming him to her ideals?
He rolled over and pulled her to him. Swift hands removed her brassiere, and warm palms cupped her breasts. Fingerprint ridges caught on the aureole and he seemed to be memorizing her body, using his hands to read the Braille of her skin.
Her hands moved along his torso, pausing to touch the navel, where once he was nourished and nurtured, brought into being with her. His breathing changed when her hand reached the demarcation line between public and private. She hovered, in no hurry, allowing the fusing of emotion and caress. It was suddenly so easy to feel the touch, to follow the map, permit the body pleasure.
And the mind, the heart, endeavored to be in love, to yearn for another. The two spheres did not meet. Each felt, but never together. If the two join, that would be where they found themselves. As his mouth kissed hers, she enjoyed the tactile presence; her body responded, sensual blood flowed where needed, and she allowed the pleasure. Welcomed it.
Validated it.
At the same time all was enhanced because she was there, she was fully present, loving him, loving this, knowing how she felt in the moment.
Their eyes met, blue on brown, and he smiled. He knew.
They pulled away, shirtless and separate, with three feet between the nearest ends of their distinct bodies. His eyes pulled her soul closer than their bodies could join. As a child, she had once asked what God did when too many people were born, and He didn't have enough souls. The reverend had said that faith carries us through questions like that. If Lilith prayed, she would know.
Each breath now is a prayer.
Each breath opens me for more, the air filling and expanding in my body, feeding me, charging through him. Eye contact breeds new images, and I imagine, my eyes and chin on his face. Being together without touching confirms that I am no longer alone. I have never been lonely. He has always been alone, until now.
One hand breaks the distance, and four hands shed the remaining clothes. They are warm flesh and hair, some soft, some coarse. My mind flushes the running thoughts – preoccupations, worries, self-conscious entreaties and inhibitions. All we have between us now is air, pliable and easy to dismiss.
His mouth returns to my breasts for brief kisses and travels down to escape the chilly air. Under covers, he finds the home of future children and uses his tongue to tell me his love. The language is foreign at first, then clear, and finally it becomes my own internal dialogue, a chatter that lifts my hips into his face. A dictionary of knowing.
“Stop!” she moaned, the edge too soon, the eyes too brown, the room a swimming pool of musk and heat and urgency. His hands slid up her ribs and her hand slid down his chest, over his navel, to find her talisman. Touching confirmed the connection but did not deepen it. Only time will do so. But fitting his puzzle piece into her space helped to deliver time to this moment, a layer of consciousness they can only access through release.
Complete. He filled her and she embraced him with warm, wet flesh designed to encase and envelope, and the hitch of breath in both was part of their mother tongue. They were not meeting for the first time. Instead, they returned to each other, splinters of soul drawn like iron shavings to a magnet. He slid out, then in, eyes boring into hers, love smoothing the skin of his sternum, her breasts lounging against him, fluidity their prayer until both cried out each other's names, then words and sounds that spoke of something timeless, unfinished, yet just beginning.