The Innocent Read online

  “That’s okay,” I told her. “You can have him… I mean them.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Reese frowned at her, “She can’t give him to you.”

  “She can give me her share of him,” Mikayla said, raising one finger as she made her point like the business law expert she was studying to become, “which makes me the top shareholder. So, he’s mine.”

  “Alexa, did you give her your shares? I was your friend first. That isn’t fair,” Reese cried, folding her arms.

  “You can both have my shares,” I said, shaking my head. God, they looked like they were going to fight over him.

  They stared at me and then glared at each other. There was only one piece of meat and three she-wolves. Well, actually two because I was not hungry. I just wanted to go out– that was all–but then my shadow came back. He came back with two friends.

  “He’s Lance, and that’s Abe,” he said, indicating with his thumb guy one and two behind him.

  Abe was pretty in a dark sort of way with brown hair and eyes, stubble, high cheek bones and pouty lips. He was about six-two, broad shouldered and muscled.

  Lance was tall, and his name was kind of indicative. He was about six-foot-seven and slender but still strong. He had warm blue eyes, curly dirty blond hair, tan skin and the sweetest face of the three.

  My stalker was the handsomest, with chestnut hair and light eyes, but I’m partial to that combination. He had a strong face that was softened only by his beautiful green eyes.

  “I’m Cristien,” He said.

  I sighed. Of course, he had to have the most non-Jewish name in the world. My mother would spit blood if she had to say it.

  I blinked at the dazzling trio, puzzled. All three were handsome? What were they, models? They looked like guys you only saw in magazines or in a hot dream.

  “Hi, I’m Reese,” she gasped. She and Mikayla were giggling hysterically and jumping up and down in their seats like they had won the jackpot in Las Vegas, “and this is Mikayla and she’s Al . . .”

  “Alexa,” I finished for her.

  “Hey girls,” Lance said. Abe nodded to us. His dark eyes met mine. I looked away as Cristien put my drink on the table. I mumbled my thanks to him as I stared at the glass. The drink was purple? And what was that foamy white stuff on top?

  “May we join you?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Reese and Mikayla said without me.

  Of course, Cristien sat next to me. As he pulled his chair under the table, his arm and leg touched mine, sending energy through me like electric shocks. I tried to behave as if nothing was happening. I stared straight ahead. Abe was directly across from me.

  “You know, baby, you’re really exotic,” he said, looking at me appraisingly. He had a slight accent, maybe French.

  I sighed. I always got veiled insults like that all through school because I was olive-skinned and my eyes were almond-shaped. My mother told me I got them from my dad’s family. He wasn’t Jewish, but I was because it was passed on through the mother’s side. I also got my ability to kvetch and my grey eyes from my mom. She was blonde and blue eyed, an Ashkenazi Jew. To me, “exotic” always meant you did not belong. You were not like everyone else, not Jewish-looking enough, whatever that meant.

  “Not really,” I said to Abe with practiced bitterness. “I’m a JA, a Jewish-American. I’m completely domestic.”

  Lance laughed. Cristien growled. It was low, almost inaudible. I felt it as much as I heard it. I told myself that I must have imagined it until I saw the fear cross Abe’s face right before he looked away from me.

  “So, do you come to a lot of these parties?” Cristien asked me.

  “No. Never,” I stammered, taken aback by the idea of his having growled at another person.

  “Really?” He looked surprised.

  “Alexa’s Jewish. It’s against her religion or something to have fun,” Mikayla said, laughing.

  Ha. Ha. Bitch. Thanks for throwing me under a bus to look good for a guy.

  “This club is the best. How about you, Cristien? Do you party a lot?” Reese asked.

  He looked annoyed as he leaned forward to speak to her, leaving Lance exposed. He smiled at me. I smiled back and relaxed.

  “You like to dance?” Lance asked.

  “Surprisingly, I do.”

  “Why are you surprised?” he asked.

  “Well, you may not believe this but tonight is the first…” but before I could finish my answer, Cristien sat back, glanced from Lance to me. He looked angry. Was he jealous?

  “What school do you guys go to?” Mikayla asked them.

  “We work in IT,” Lance answered.

  At the same time, Abe said, “We work Security.”

  “We work at a cybersecurity company,” Cristien finished.

  An IT company? They didn’t look like IT guys. They were too buff, not at all brainy looking. Nerds they were not. I knew nerds. I was one. I watched them, trying to figure them out.

  “Oh,” the others giggled. “We go to Heller College for Women.”

  “Aren’t you going to drink anything?” Cristien asked in my ear. He was looking pointedly at my glass. “It’s a calimacho, red wine and Coca Cola. They’re very popular in Spain.”

  “Oh, I forgot,” I said, reaching for my purse. I fished out some money for my drink. This was not a date. I was paying for myself.

  “No, it’s on me,” he said, horrified.

  “That’s okay.” I held out the ten. “How much?”

  “No, really,” he insisted, leaning away from me finally.

  I smiled. I could hold the bill out like garlic in front of a vampire. Then Mikayla reached over, grabbed it, and shoved it back into my purse.

  “Cut it out, Alexa,” Reese hissed in my ear. “He’s trying to be nice.”

  He was not. He was just trying to buy his way into my bed. That was all. Then a waiter appeared with a little tray lit up with sparklers.

  “Happy twenty-first birthday, Alexa!” the DJ shouted over the sound system. “Let’s all sing Cupid’s girlfriend a round.” Then the whole club sang “Happy Birthday” to me.

  I felt like a lying, ungrateful idiot.

  “Make a wish,” Cristien said, as the waiter put a mini-cake down in front of me on the wood table. The flame danced on the candle while I blushed.

  “Wish for love and money!” Reese cried.

  “Wish for to be young and hot forever!” Mikayla laughed.

  My mother would want me to wish to graduate and get a good job… I inhaled and stopped. What did I want? I smiled, closed my eyes. I blew out the candle and opened my eyes to Cristien holding out the little cake to me like a piece of forbidden fruit.

  I bit into the little gold square. It was a chocolate cake with a salted-caramel shell and cream filling. Oh, it was so good.

  “Do you mind if I have a taste?” he asked, surprising me.

  I shook my head and offered the crescent of chocolate to him. He took my hand with the cake in it and brought it to his mouth. He took a bite and his lips kissed my skin.

  “Mmmm,” he said, staring into my eyes. “Delicious.”

  I pulled my hand away, dropped the cake. He caught it and put it on the plate. Then Cristien reached across me. He lifted the drink he had bought me and turned the heart-shaped straw toward me.

  “You still haven’t had any,” he said.

  Why did he want me to drink it so much? Had he put something in it?

  “You seem so interested in it, why don’t you have some?” I asked.

  Cristien brought my drink to his lips and took a sip, then turned it so that the straw pointed to me. He made the straw brush my lower lip. I drew back a little, but he was insistent, chasing me with the drink.

  To stop the stupidity of the moment, I took the straw into my mouth. I considered that this might be a mistake. When I saw the amorous expression on his face, I realized it was a big mistake. Men were so childish. Straws were not penises. Sometimes a
straw was just a straw, to paraphrase Freud.

  Well, two of us could play this game. I bit the straw as hard as I could, taking it between my molars and chewing. I let it fall crushed into the cup.

  “Ouch,” Lance cried, shaking his head and laughing.

  Cristien sat back, studying the tip of the straw. Then he looked up at me.

  “You go to an all girl’s school?” he asked, half smiling.

  “Yup,” I nodded.

  “You like it, not having any guys around?”

  Was he suggesting I was a lesbian?

  “Well,” I said, “it’s easier to run around naked. Much safer.”

  “So, the legends are true,” he smiled, not trying to pretend he wasn’t imagining me naked, “about all the nubile young women frolicking about ready for the picking?”

  “I don’t know about nubile or picking. Most of us have a belt in karate, but if you are into having your neck broken,” I said, smiling.

  He stared back calmly, as if he were listening to me say something sexy. He wasn’t like any of the guys I had ever met. I had majored in self-defense bitchiness at my last school and gotten an ‘A.’ It was my birthright as Jewish woman to be able to, when circumstances called for it, stop unwanted male attention with wit, but nothing fazed him. There was no blushing, no swallowing, no pimples or B.O. for that matter, and no hesitation. He was scaring the hell out of me instead of the other way around like I was used to.

  He leaned forward, said, “By the way, you dance very well.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t return the compliment, since I didn’t see you dancing,” I said.

  He smiled. “I couldn’t help myself. You were so . . .”

  I waited for the left-handed compliment—so hot, so bad, so wicked, so wild, all followed by the word “baby”. I raised my brows while I waited for the adjective that would make him sink lower than dirt in my eyes. I was so ready for him to finally fail.

  “Magical,” he said. The word came out like a pearl. The triumphant smile drizzled off my face. “So, would you like to dance, face to face this time?” he asked, rising.

  “Let’s all dance,” Lance said, “’cause I’ve got to see this.”

  Chairs scraped around me. Our friends were coming with us, but no part of me registered them because Cristien had taken my hand to help me up. He guided me through the crowd, while blocking anyone from touching me. He was protecting me. Un-jostled, I reached the dance floor. The music was wild and trembling. The bass was going double time. For a long moment, he stood holding my hand and gazing into my eyes. My heart pounded while we lingered only a few inches apart, the center of a storm of dancers that raged all around us. When he let go of me, it felt like he was breaking a spell.

  I forced myself to dance to get rid of all the excess energy in my body. I moved and watched Cristien. He danced very well––most guys I’d seen at high-school mixers didn’t. They jumped up and down or looked like trees being blown by hurricane-force winds.

  I also noticed that the others were talking to each other.

  “I love this song,” Mikayla said.

  “I know this singer,” Reese nodded.

  I didn’t say anything, and neither did Cristien. He watched me as if I were the only thing in the world like I always wanted a man to. Then he leaned forward. All I saw was skin before his cheek brushed mine, before I inhaled his hot male scent.

  “You’re very beautiful,” he whispered. I didn’t really believe him, but I enjoyed hearing him say it and wouldn’t mind if he said it again and again. After a few songs, the music turned slow. Cristien put his arms around my waist and pulled me close. I had never been held like this by a man. I tried not to feel every nuance of his muscular body against mine, his heat that made me tremble.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, holding me closer.

  “No,” I breathed, realizing then that I had been holding my breath. I felt overwhelmed by him—by everything about him, his touch, his voice, his eyes, and his scent like lime and cucumber. And my body was reacting to him. It was like my body had been asleep my whole life and was suddenly awakened by him. It kept saying, “Feel this, this current between you. Feel how good it is.”

  But my mind was screaming, “Run, get away from this man.” I felt like I had been riding along on a slow nag that suddenly broke out into wild bucking. It felt like I was playing with fire, or more correctly it was playing with me. I felt like I had a fever, like I was going to die or explode. I couldn’t stop responding to his every move, shrugging at his touches, shuddering from his breath.

  Then he stopped moving and rested his cheek against mine. He turned a little, and his lips touched my hair. He moved down to my cheek and toward my lips.

  The song ended. I pushed out of his arms. I bolted to the table. I wasn’t dancing with him again. Maybe I would never dance, ever. I didn’t care as long as that never happened to me again.

  I reached the table and purposely sat in Reese’s seat, hoping that the girls would sit around me, but everyone had paired off. Mikayla and Abe. Reese and Lance. Cristien sat near me again.

  The others started to make plans to go somewhere away from here for something. Home, I thought. But they did not want to go home. I looked up wondering if I could find Natalie and what’s-his-name in this mob or if I had enough money to get back to the dorm by cab. Probably no to both, and it was too late to go alone by train…

  “Yes, let’s get out of here,” Cristien agreed. He had not taken his eyes off me. He got up and waited for me to rise.

  I did. I started to walk. He followed me. We got our coats, left the club and walked out into a cold night. I hugged myself. The frigid air made me feel more awake, less stupefied. Then Cristien put his heavy brown suede jacket over my shoulders, scenting the air I breathed, making me feel and want him again.

  “Better now?” he asked, putting his arm around me.

  It was like I was Atlas carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders with my knees already shaky and he came and dropped a moon on me too.

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling weakly. It seemed to satisfy him.

  Cristien led us behind the club to a private parking lot. The others were conversing, moving their lips, laughing like they were having a good time. How I envied and hated them, wished I was like them, as confident and assured around guys.

  Cristien stopped near a square black car with a silver-winged lady on the front. He opened the passenger door for me. It opened backwards. The smell of leather wafted up. I slid in. The seats were softer than my bed. I sank into them. Cristien closed my door then got in on the driver’s side. I turned back to see that Reese and Mikayla were seated comfortably in Lance’s and Abe’s laps.

  Cristien got in on his side, pushed the starter button, and the engine came to life. Then the whole ceiling of the car lit up with tiny lights that looked like stars. My jaw dropped.

  “This is a coolest car,” Mikayla said, looking around. “What kind is it?”

  “Rolls Royce Phantom,” Cristien said.

  Phantom? I thought Rolls Royces were old-fashioned limos and this was not an old-fashioned anything. Then Cristien turned up the heat. Classical music played over the sound system.

  “Dude, something a bit more ‘now,’” Lance said over his shoulder.

  He changed the station as he pulled out of the parking lot. Cristien reached over and took my hand. I shut my eyes; his touch felt so good.

  “Where do you girls want to go?” Lance asked from the back.

  “It’s late. Nothing is open,” Mikayla sighed.

  “I always wanted to go to the South Street Seaport,” Reese piped up.

  “That’s a great idea,” Lance told her. He put his hand on Cristien’s shoulder: “You heard the lady.”

  Cristien turned to me, asked, “What do you think?”

  His thumb was caressing my hand in a slow languid manner. I knew I should say, “I’m tired. I want to go home,” but I couldn’t make myself.

&nb
sp; “Sounds great” was what came out.

  “Good,” he smiled, squeezing my hand and making a sudden yet smooth left turn.

  The First Kiss

  South Street Seaport was closed. All the stores were dark. Mikayla and Reese looked out of the car windows like disappointed children.

  “We can still walk around,” Lance suggested.

  “Yay.” Mikayla and Reese clapped happily, rushing out of the car.

  “Have you been here before?” Cristien asked me.

  “No,” I said, surveying the vast space dotted with benches.

  “Then let me show you.”

  He led me by hand over the uneven gray planks. My heels echoed in the silence. The others wandered their own ways, while we walked to the water. The smell of cold and salt was sharp in the air. Frost brushed the skin of my cheeks. I stopped and leaned against the freezing railing that edged the whole port. White foam and ice gleamed where the black waves hit the wooden pylons below, and in the distance the dark sky stretched.

  It was breathtaking. There was never a night in my life this beautiful. I turned to the water, its rhythmic babbling, its darkness that mirrored the night sky. Somehow it seemed less awesome than Cristien in my imagination.

  “It’s beautiful here,” I said. Perfect birthday, perfect Valentine, perfect guy.

  “Yes,” he whispered, and came to stand behind me.

  He leaned into me, his hands on the rail beside mine. He felt so good. He seemed to fit with everything else here, a handsome prince to top off this fantasy night. This time was like a masterpiece, a painting, and he was the last brushstroke.

  A part of me had to admit that this could be the beginning of my falling in love with him, that this night would stand out in my mind, that when I died I would see it again and pause over it as one of those moments you never forget. The wind blew, brushing my hair against him. He inhaled.

  “Mmm,” he breathed, as if he’d come home to a warm welcome. He wrapped his arms hard around me, enveloping me, making me sigh.

  A breeze rustled over the streets, the lamp posts, and benches. An old display ship sat on the pier, and I imagined its missing sails billowing in the wind like a woman’s flowing gown. It reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Byron.