Sanctity (39 page)

Michael seemed to be reflecting on what I
said. 

“Why was Charlie here anyway and how did you
find me?”

“I brought him, he was supposed to stay here
and wait for me, for us.  I was worried because the night
Victor brought you to Margaret’s you didn’t remember me.  I
didn’t think you would come with me if I could get you away from
Victor but I thought you might go with Charlie.”

“He found Victor’s card in
your shop the other night and when Charlie realized that was who
you were catering desserts for he knew you were in trouble. He came
straight to me and it wasn’t too hard to figure out Victor’s
intentions.  After Victor took you from Margaret's I
looked everywhere for you; it was nearly morning and I knew he
couldn’t have taken you far.  You and I, though, we had been
apart for so long, it just wasn’t as easy as it used to be. 
When I finally 
felt 
you, you and Victor were
on your way to the airport.  I couldn’t get there in time but
I 
saw
 where the pilot intended to take you.  I called
Charlie and we took the first flight we could get. After we landed
we came straight here to make our plans.  I had no idea what
Victor was up to and it was just luck that he brought
you 
there
 when we were already 
here
.”

“Do you know where Charlie is now? 
Is he alright?”

“No, I don’t know Elayna.  I went to the
hotel we sent him to and tried to find him but I think he may have
gone home,” Michael bit his lip, “I think he remembers; I think he
remembers everything.  “Victor,” I saw a flash of pain and
sorrow in his eyes and reached out to take his hand, “Victor must
not have been strong enough to make him forget.” 

“We have to find him, Michael.  We need
to make him understand.  I have to apologize.”

Michael was shaking his head.  I felt
like there was something he wanted to tell me, to confess but he
carefully avoided my questioning eyes.  “You can’t leave, not
right away.  You’ll need to rest; to rest during the daytime
and this is the safest place for that right now.”

“Oh, yes, this morning.  I remember I
couldn’t breathe and the world looked on fire,” I frowned, “but you
were fine.  Why is it different for you than it is for
me?”

“Do you remember the night when Gavin and
Victor…”

I stopped him short, unwilling to hear about
my parents, “Yes, Michael.  I will never forget that night
again.”

“I think Gavin, his blood; I think it did
something to me.  Since then the sunlight hasn’t bothered me
very much.  It is uncomfortable if I am in it for too long but
I don’t think it’s deadly.  As time goes by I think I am able
to tolerate it more and more.  I hope you will, too.”

“Hmm,” I sighed.  “Do you think you
could find Charlie and bring him here?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Michael hesitated several moments before he
answered, “Elayna, I did something.  At the time I thought it
was for the best but now I’m not so sure.”

“What is it Michael?  You can tell me,
you can tell me anything.”

“I...I…You know Charlie has always loved
you.  You know that, right?”

I knew it but I didn’t want to admit it after
realizing that I never loved him nearly as much as he loved
me.  He was my dearest friend but my heart had not been my
own, not since I was a little girl, “Yes Michael, I know, I have
always known how Charlie felt about me.”

“I…I asked him to take care of you.  I
promised him that if he loved you, if he could make you happy that
I would let you go; that I would never interfere with you or your
life again.”

“But Michael, how could you…”

“And I made him promise that if I let you go
he would share with me all your happy memories, the ones I would no
longer be a part of.”

“Michael!”  I covered my mouth. 
Suddenly I remembered the dream, chasing after the thread, winding
it around and round and ultimately having it ripped away from
me.  “You left me, that’s right.  You tried…you tried…and
Kaley and Margaret, they stopped you and I was…I thought I
was…”

Michael was shaking his head his eyes full of
regret, “I could never forgive myself for hurting you. 
Charlie saw me, that night, the night of the formal.  He
followed you home after I left you at the restaurant.  He
wanted to make sure you were alright.  He saw me when I
climbed up to your bedroom and again when I jumped back down. 
He knew what I was, he could see it, I couldn’t hide it from
him.  I wanted to kill him right then and there for loving
you!  I did!  Because that is when I realized that I
couldn’t give you the life that he could.”

“Michael,” I whispered.

“No, I would never, never
have done it,” Michael buried his face in his hands. 
“Instead, I 
told
 him everything, everything that you had been through
and how important you were to me and why I needed him to be a part
of your life.  I thought you would be happy together; all I’ve
ever wanted was for you to be happy.  After all that I had
done; I could never make up for any of it.  You deserved
better, you deserved someone like Charlie.  He would die for
you; he nearly did.”

I was awestruck.  I
never knew any of this.  The guilt was overwhelming.  I
couldn’t imagine what Charlie must have been going through.  I
remembered all those 
things
 Charlie had to do and
suddenly knew exactly what they were and why he disliked them so
very much.  He must have been visiting Michael all those years
and sharing our life with him.

“Oh,” I moaned, “We have to try
Michael.  We have to try and find Charlie and make this
right.”

Something was happening to me.  Michael
was looking me over curiously. 

“What is it Michael?” As I asked, though, I
realized what was happening.  I felt my veins constrict, like
they were shrinking in on themselves.  “Oh, that’s awful,” I
started rubbing at my arms trying to alleviate the sensation.

Michael took my hand and stood me up. 
He led me to the kitchen and took a small paring knife from its
block on the counter.  He glided the knife across his wrist
and though I was appalled by the idea the scent of his blood
coursed through my nose and I instinctively reached for his
arm.

“Hurry,” he said, “I will heal quickly, if
you don’t hurry.”

I hesitantly put my lips around the incision
he made and forced the thought of what I was doing from my
mind.  It was incomprehensible, cannibalistic and yet it was
so good.  I felt the pressure in my veins easing and somehow
knew that it was enough and I needed to stop.  I slowly pulled
myself away and twisted my head to gaze up at Michael. 

He was standing impossibly still, like a
statue and his eyes were lifted skyward.  His mouth was
slightly open and there was the unmistakable expression of ecstasy
on his face.

“Michael?” I whispered.

He was so still that I started to wonder if
he heard me call his name.  He slowly lowered his gaze to mine
and it was as though he was suddenly swept back to the moment,
“Oh,” he said, “that was unexpected.  I can’t tell you how
good that felt,” he looked deliriously happy.

“Really?”

“I don’t know why but I think that may have
been the most…” he searched for a word, “intimate sensation I have
ever felt.”

I giggled, “Okaaay, I’m not sure what to say
to that.”

He just smiled, “Don’t say anything,” and
kissed me. 

When he pulled back there was a wondrous
smile on his lips.  It was like an undeniable
invitation.  He took my face in his hands and kissed me again
ever so gently.  Every nerve in my lips was stimulated and I
nearly gasped at the sensuousness of so simple an act. 
Michael was grinning playfully.  I couldn’t help asking, “Will
it always feel so, so...”

“Intense?” Michael suggested.

“Yes, I can’t tell you,” I shook my head.

He kissed me again, “When you are strong it
will.”

“Strong?”

“If you don’t…feed,” he mumbled obviously
uncomfortable with the idea of the unfortunate necessity, “your
senses won’t be so heightened.”

“Oh,” I whispered and tucked the thought away
unwilling to let it spoil the moment.  “Kiss me again.”

He did and I could feel his desires coupled
with mine.  It was as though my yearning had been doubled and
our needs were a singular thought that neither could ignore. 
I stood up unable to curb the thrill I felt from the caress of his
lips against mine.  For a moment I was torn, I remembered and
regretted the times with Victor and wondered how Michael could ever
forgive me.

“Don’t think like that,” he whispered, “Your
regrets are nothing compared to the ones I have.”

I involuntarily thought of Brenda.

“Yes, and countless oth…”

I put my finger over his lips, “We will
forgive each other and we will never be those people again.”

He scooped me up and carried me to the
bedroom.

“Oh,” I whispered as he gently set me down,
“I know this,” I ran my fingers over the dense fabric of the
bedspread.

“How could you, you’ve never been here.”

“But I’ve dreamt of it, of you, Michael,
here, resting here.”

“Do you dream of me often,” he teased.

“Michael, you are always in my dreams,” I
reached up and brought him down beside me.

As we lay side by side he slid my dress up
over my head.  It was in ruins from the flare and I didn’t
understand why Michael was being so gentle as he eased it off but
maybe it was just to preserve the moment.

He looked away as he shoved it towards the
edge of the bed and when he turned back he made a little gasp of
surprise.  When I looked down to see what had caught his
attention I noticed the scar in the middle of my chest.  It
was very faint, almost like a birthmark.  It must have been
from the flare which I thought was nothing unusual, wounds like the
one I received inevitably left scars.

“But not as you are now, it should have
healed.”

“It did heal.”

“Not completely.”

“Is it ugly, do you not like it?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s…well you can’t see
it from your perspective.  Here,” he handed me out of the bed
and stood me in front of the mirror.

It was very faint and I doubted anyone would
ever notice it but I could see the outline.  It was about two
inches in diameter and looked very much like a peace symbol and
even odder still there were little shoots coming off it like a
paint splatter that made the symbol look like it was resting in the
middle of a heart.

“Huh, well if that isn’t the oddest scar
ever!”

Michael nipped his finger, “Maybe this will
work.”

“No,” I curled his finger away, “I want to
keep it, to remind me of everything we have been through.  It
will help us to remember the people we have lost and how much we
loved them.  It will give us hope that despite it all we can
still find peace.”

“I love you,” that was all he needed to say
to revive the moment.

I always knew there was more to lovemaking
than the physical but other than the first few times I had never
felt the emotional union.  This time was different even than
those.  I felt so connected like our hearts and bodies were
striving toward the same objective.  He was telling me how he
loved me with image after image, pouring his thoughts into mine and
my mind was taking it all in and sending back a reciprocating
series of my own loving declarations.  I could feel our
connection, that phantom tendril reaching out to us twisting and
turning and binding us to one another, weaving us together.

Our lips found the vital position on one
another’s necks as an unimaginable ecstasy coursed through our
bodies and time seemed to stand still.  The delirium slowly
subsided and we withdrew from one another.  He was holding my
face staring into my eyes; I was crying from the overwhelming joy I
felt.

“I love you,” I crushed him to my
chest.  “I can never be away from you again.”

“That may be the one thing that would be the
death of me,” he softly said as his lips rested against my
ear.  He pulled back and kissed me. 

The minutes ticked by.

“You’re right; we have to fix things with
Charlie,” he kissed my temple.  “If we plan it carefully
enough we can go home in a day or two.  I’ll have to arrange a
place for you to stay first.”

“Thank you, Michael.  Thank you for
understanding.”

It was three days later
before we were ready to leave.  Michael contacted Margaret and
had her arrange for a contractor to convert one of the bedrooms in
his house into a 
darkroom
.  It was painful to
watch him tell her how important the work was and that it needed to
be done to his exact specifications.  Though he never said it
outright, I’m sure it was understood that he wasn’t picking up a
new hobby and that the room was for me.  I felt a great deal
of uneasiness and regret and hoped that she wouldn’t blame Michael
for how things had turned out as I watched him pacing the floor and
relaying his instructions.

I knew he would have preferred to go himself
and oversee the work but he refused to leave me alone.  “It’s
too soon, Elayna, it could be dangerous for you.  We don’t
know how this is going to go for you; whether you will have the
self-control to live within certain…” he took a deep breath,
“boundaries.”

I started to interject, “But we will never
know if we never try.”

“No!” he insisted.  “I will take care of
you.  I won’t let you make the kinds of mistakes that I have
made.  I couldn’t live with myself if anything so…so
regrettable should happen.”