The Innocent Read online

  “Luke, Natalie, this is Alexa,” Mikayla said to the couple in the front. “It’s her birthday today.”

  The girl was dark-haired with piercings in her dimples. She had a nice face. She smiled and said, “It must be so cool to be born on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Don’t be stupid. The holiday takes precedence, and your birthday’s like shit compared to it,” her red-headed boyfriend said.

  I gave him the finger behind his back, but I was not the only one. As he pulled out into the street with one hand on the steering wheel, cars beeped and brakes squealed. He was a terrible driver. He was so busy trying to feel up Natalie he couldn’t keep his eyes on the road. We swerved again. Another driver cursed us.

  “Hey, octopus, keep two hands on the steering wheel and two eyes on the road,” I yelled from behind him. He reached back to fondle my calf.

  I slapped his hand. This was why they didn’t allow boys to touch us. They didn’t know what to do with their hands.

  He laughed. “Your mistake was you left me six arms free.”

  “Sorry, Alexa,” Natalie muttered, when she realized what he had done. “He doesn’t mean anything.”

  Reese rolled her eyes and whispered in my ear, “He always does that.”

  I glared at Mikayla. So that’s why she didn’t want to sit here? I didn’t understand why girls put up with guys like him. A guy should treat you with respect or get dumped. What happened to all the gentlemen? The knights in shining armor, the Romeos, the Prince Charmings? It was like they went extinct or something. I leaned against the duct-taped back seat and looked hopelessly out the window.

  There was no place like Manhattan during a holiday. It never did anything second rate. There were hearts and cupids, roses and candy boxes everywhere. We were driving down 5th Avenue past Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany’s, and Prada. Everything I could ever want but never afford was on display. It was gorgeous. Herds of people rushed by laden with pink and red shopping bags.

  I wished I was one of them. That was when my mother’s mantra came to mind. If I ever wanted to have anything in life, be one of those people who could afford all those beautiful things, I’d have to study hard and work even harder. I sighed, knowing I shouldn’t have given in to temptation. It was stupid for me to go out, as my encounter with Luke had proven. Nothing good would come of this.

  Regret kicked at my face until the sound of music filled the car. We had stopped at a red light. A guy in a dark gray coat and jeans stood on the street corner playing his heart out on a violin. Pachelbel lilted into the night, making it brighter, sweeter and happier. The street light gave the player an odd shimmering halo. It was so romantic. Then the music stopped, and he turned to look at me. I felt my heart freeze.

  “Did you hear me?” Reese asked, elbowing me. “They have a live DJ, LEDs, and smoke.”

  “What?” I asked. Even when I turned to her, I could feel his eyes on me, but when I glanced back, he was gone. Another couple of turns and the car stopped in a cozy neighborhood full of little bars and quaint eateries. Mikayla opened the door, and we climbed out. We followed Luke and Natalie down the street.

  We were evidently going to a church. A huge line of shivering scantily clad people waited behind velvet ropes to get inside. The building had stained glass, gothic spires and wooden doors with crosses on them. It looked almost like a castle in the middle of the city. The words “Sacred and Profane” flashed red across the second-story windows. Bass pulsed from the stone facade. Instead of going to the back of the line, Reese, Mikayla, Luke and Natalie walked right up to the bouncer. Mikayla gave him the five Valentine’s Day passes. They were shaped like black hearts.

  We were allowed inside. It was now or never for me. I had a nervous idea that I might be struck by lightning or prevented somehow from going in. Jews did not go into churches. I had never been to one and had been taught to avoid them like a vampire would. I stopped before the threshold of the double glass doors.

  I took the first fateful misstep in my borrowed heels then recovered from tripping and hurried through the smoked-glass double doors. I was rewarded with the view of a long white marble staircase from a fairy tale that led down to a black glass dance floor filled with dancers. It looked like something out of a surrealist dream or Cocteau film.

  Above me and across the vaulted ceiling romantic scenes from old movies flashed in and out mixed with fantastic beasts and monsters. Colored lasers sent hearts of every kind pulsing, beating, and bleeding across the sculpted marble walls to the sound of the music. A DJ dressed in red and white monk’s robes worked from a lit balcony twenty feet above the roaring crowd. Over him a sign pulsed bloodily with the words “St. Valentine.”

  Luke and Natalie went off alone. Reese, Mikayla and I checked our coats then hurried down the winding stone staircase that led to a bar made of backlit blue onyx. I ordered my first drink. Then we went to find a place to sit. I was a few feet behind Reese when a guy stepped in front of me.

  “You want to dance?” he asked. I was surprised and flattered until I recognized him. It was the dark-haired violinist. I blinked a few times. He still had that strange dark haze around him.

  “Dance? You want to dance?” he repeated as if I hadn’t heard him over the music.

  I shook my head. Something about this was too strange. Had he followed me here from the street? I started to walk away. He grabbed me, pulled me against him.

  “Let go,” I gasped before he kissed me hard and we went flying back so fast we passed people, a breeze that ruffled their hair and that was all.

  I was sitting in a dark corner on the second floor of my club when she appeared. I had been watching the mindless hordes of people coming, going and gyrating. Lance was downstairs talking up some girls. Abe sat hunched over beside me. We were both drinking beers silently in the noise, even though alcohol doesn't affect us. It was something to do while we sipped the thick sexual energy of the mob and waited for the feeling.

  It was usually akin to someone saying my name. I would look up and there she would be: my next meal. But this girl I felt across the entire room. When she walked in it wasn’t as innocuous as someone calling “Cristien.” Her energy was like the blare of a thousand trumpets heralding the entrance of a queen.

  Though I felt her, I could only catch glimpses of her at first. She was a slender gold thread weaving through a dark turbulence of dancers. She moved with hair the color of honeyed wine, a face like moonlight.

  Suddenly, she emerged. She looked a bit underage, reserved and bookish with those glasses. I watched her intently. There was something about her, a sweetness, an innocence.

  Time inched over me like a worm, while she made faces, whispered and exaggerated with her friends. I found myself devouring every movement she made, deliberating on the dark symmetries of her hair, pondering the secrets of her bright gray eyes, and memorizing the infinite forms of her mouth as she spoke and kept silent.

  I was becoming acutely aware of everything that pertained to her. I suppose that was why I felt Abe move. Usually, I didn’t care where he went, but something made me pay attention this time. His body was taut, and his focus was on her.

  “Sit,” I told him.

  He looked back at me as if I had shaken him.

  “But Cristien she’s . . .”

  “Not your concern,” I said, clenching my fists. His attention snapped to my hands. He opened his mouth, excuses hanging from his lips. I was his better. What I wanted I got; the rest were his. He knew this, though it had been a long time since I had felt the need to invoke my prerogative.

  He shut his mouth but kept looking at her. If I had to touch him to stop him, I would throw him through the brick wall of my club to make sure he didn't get up again. That was the kind of mood I was in.

  “Go somewhere before I hurt you,” I warned him.

  He frowned. He actually frowned at me. I was reaching for him when he disappeared. He moved faster than any man could have, and he had better. Any slower I would have had
him and not let him go. Abe owed me the clothes on his back, everything. He and I were going to have to talk tomorrow about respect and allegiance.

  I took a deep breath then another and another to clear my thoughts. I sat back, taking a taste of my beer and returned to watching her, watching another incubus kiss then abduct her? I leapt downstairs before I even knew what I was doing and crossed the dance floor. Anyone between us was collateral damage as I raced after them. I found them outside in the alley.

  He was still kissing her when I got there. She was trying to push him away.

  “Destroying you now would be like destroying a Stradivarius,” he murmured, raising his head and looking in her eyes, “before you’ve played it.”

  “You’re not playing me,” she told him, then kneed him in the groin. As he crumbled, she lifted her hand and sprayed him in the face with perfume, blinding him before taking off toward me. Our eyes met as she came closer. Hers said ‘help me,’ though she was doing very well by herself.

  “Sleep,” I told her, and she fell into my arms.

  “She’s mine,” the other snarled.

  “I beg to differ.”

  He charged, and I moved to the right, caught him by his jacket as he went by. Using his momentum, I swung him face first into the wall. I repeated until he went limp. Normally, I didn’t kill, but this guy knew damn well that he was breaking my law.

  I pulled him up close and let my hunger free. He writhed, howling in agony as I took all his energy. Then he was gone except for some ash that clung to my pants. I brushed it off and turned to check on the girl.

  I knelt by her. Her eyes were open, but she was still asleep. I took off her glasses and studied her face. She was even more beautiful close up. I had never seen a creature so stunning in all my life. Her lips looked so soft and inviting. I wanted to kiss them. One look and what man wouldn’t want her? I wanted her, and I would have her. I put her glasses back on. She was still in a hypnotic state when I led her back into the club and turned her toward her friends.

  “Wake,” I said and disappeared into the crowd. She blinked, walked a circle and then tottered off. I followed and saw a group of incubi and succubi perk up as she walked by them. I was behind them in a breath. I put my arms over two girls’ shoulders.

  “Leave before I kill you all,” I told them.

  “Yes, sir,” they said and hastened toward the exit.

  Then I followed her, forced a path to her. I moved through the crowd, feeling for her. I found her dancing with her friends. I stopped mesmerized in her corona. Her dancing cast a spell.

  She was like a soap bubble, all the colors of the rainbow swirling and spinning tremulously on her surface as she moved. I could only watch her and be amazed and try not to touch. One touch and it would be gone along with all my pleasure, all its exquisiteness vanished.

  I forgot about her friends, but they saw me.

  They called her name. Alexa. They told her about me. I waited for my Alexa to turn. I knew what I would see. I had seen it countless times on the faces of women, stunned surprise and pleasure. I wanted to see that look on her face, the melting look of one who was glad that I had come to her.

  Alexa turned. Her gray eyes were liquid smoke against the tan of her skin, the touch of a harvest moon on a ripe golden field of grain. She put on her black-rimmed glasses so she could see me better then frowned, turned and ran away. Her long hair brushed against my mouth as she fled, making my whole body shudder.

  I was so shocked, I called after her, but she kept going. No one ever walked away from me, even when I was only mildly interested. Nothing like that had ever happened in eight-hundred years. The way she was making me feel, she should have been nailed to the floor like I was. At first, I was astonished. Then an uncontrollable desire to possess her overwhelmed me.

  She had left me standing with her friends grinning at me from ear to ear, eyeing me the way I wanted her to eye me. I decided instantly to use them to get to her. I made them lead me to her. My Alexa ran away from me, and I could not help but follow.

  (Ten minutes earlier…)

  “Where the hell did you go, Alexa?” Reese asked me.

  I blinked, not knowing what she was talking about. I had been right behind them the whole time. I sat down next to her on a barstool.

  “Here’s your drink,” Mikayla said, sliding it to me.

  “Thanks.” I took a sip of my virgin piña colada then another and another until I finished the whole thing. Some part of me felt like I needed it.

  “Let’s dance. I’m bored,” Reese said, rising.

  “I just sat down,” I complained.

  “Come on,” she said, walking away. “It’s your birthday. Have some fun!”

  “It’s my Hebrew birthday! No one celebrates their Hebrew birthday!” I cried.

  Mikayla and Reese ignored me, pushed their way through the crowd to the dance floor and immediately started dancing. I just stood there. Their movements seemed a blur to me. It was really hot in here. Everything was spinning. My head felt light. I felt light.

  I watched them dance. I watched men watching them. At my old school, you didn’t dance like that. You didn’t dress like this. You had to be proper and modest, but I wasn’t there anymore. I was here, and it was Halloween. Come as you are not night. I told myself that it didn’t matter what I did in my borrowed clothes. This was not real. It was a dream and tomorrow I’d be back to being a study pumpkin.

  Tonight I would dance like there was no tomorrow. I imitated them. I raised my arms, moved my hips and let my body do whatever the music told it to do for the first time in my life.

  “That’s it, Alexa,” Reese said.

  “Now you’ve got it,” Mikayla added.

  I felt like a dog that had been chained up and was now free. I let song after song wash over me. The music turned hotter, and I forgot my friends, took off my glasses. I shook out my hair. I touched my body like it was all new to me. I felt eyes on me, guys noticing me. I felt their looks for the first time and their desire. The old Alexa said I should stop, but the new me didn’t listen. I felt somehow stronger and better now, more powerful than ever. I felt different, and I liked it. I danced like no one was there, but I wasn’t alone.

  Bodies jostled. I was barely paying attention. The music begged and strained. The singer told me he wanted me more than life, that I was his, that he would die for me, for my touch. That was all I wanted. I was home. Then Reese gasped. She pressed her lips to my ear.

  “Alexa, a guy’s been behind you the whole song, just watching you.”

  I turned around eager to see who had answered my call. I had to step back because he was so close to me. Then I put my glasses on and saw him.

  He was magnificent-- tall, tanned, dark-haired, green-eyed, all wrapped up in a striped white and gray designer shirt with superbly matching jacket and faded black jeans that looked sprayed on they were so perfectly molded to his body. All that and he was smiling down at me.

  The Valentine’s Day gods had answered Reese’s prayer. This guy looked like he would be great in bed. Professional grade, in fact. I imagined him removing my hymen as if he were pulling a cork out of an ancient wine bottle, spider webs and dust flew everywhere. It was beyond humiliating.

  I just walked away.

  “Wait,” he called.

  Dancing with an Incubus

  I kept going like I hadn’t heard him or didn’t care, which I didn’t. I headed straight to the stairs, climbed to the balcony area above the dance floor and found an empty table. I turned to lean my head on the railing. I was not being de-virgined tonight. I was not ready. It was too much pressure.

  Then I heard Reese behind me.

  “Thanks,” she was saying. She pulled out a chair and sat down to my left. “I am thirsty.”

  “And your friend?” a deep, sexy male voice asked. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and my hands gripped the railing. It was him.

  “It’s Alexa’s birthday today. Isn’t that g
reat?” Mikayla giggled as she took a seat next to Reese.

  “She just turned twenty-one,” she lied.

  “On Valentine’s Day? She must be a romantic soul. So, what can I get you, Alexa? Anything at all. It’s your night.”

  I couldn’t believe they had told him my name.

  “Are you speaking to me?” I asked, facing him.

  “Yes,” he smiled.

  “Really? I thought you were talking to them.”

  “I’m speaking to you now.”

  “Oh,” I said, and looked away.

  “So, what are you going to have, Alexa?”

  “Nothing.” There was to be no having of any kind tonight. I was having none of him, and he was having none of me.

  He stood gazing down at me: “How about a seltzer?”

  It always started with a drink, a little small talk and then out came the corkscrew, I thought, and shook my head.

  “What does she usually drink?” he asked the others.

  I turned to my “friends.” They wouldn’t betray me again, would they?

  “Piña colada,” they said in unison.

  My jaw dropped.

  “That’s it? No. She has to have something special. I insist. Leave it to me,” he said, and left.

  “He’s so hot,” Reese sighed when he was out of earshot. “I think he likes you, Alexa.”

  “Who cares?” I said, then turned to watch him walk through the crowd. I couldn’t help it. There was something about the way he moved. Men cleared a way for him. Women turned and paid attention as he passed.

  My Jewish-girl vision had immediately assessed him as a Lothario, a Casanova. I liked less flashy guys, what would be called a mensch in Yiddish, a good guy who only wanted one woman. This guy had bad goy-boy written all over him. I was waiting for my B’shert, not my bedmate.

  “I wish there were two of him… I mean three of him,” Mikayla said, remembering I was there.