CHAPTER 2
September 1949
United States of America
The girl finds herself writing about David Webster. The man with the carefully chosen sentences.
xxx
I have been dead all my life before I met him. I have been a limp and soft body, not seeing, not really feeling. I have been living between walls taller and thicker and harder than mountains. Escape is slow, too slow.
I have only seen his face once or twice. In a crowd of eager students answering a question, reading a verse. O, but his face…
She found herself in David Webster's dorm room.
She is neatly dressed of course, as a lady of good graces should be. But she finds herself sitting on David Webster's bed. The neat - o very neat - turquoise skirt getting awfully rumpled.
His eyes is on her.
The intense gaze gets her every time. It is the first thing that you notice.
Blue as the sea.
As the sky.
As gems held in the palm of your hands.
O, David, what blue dazzling eyes you have. I've fallen in love with them from that very first moment. I've fallen in love with your hurt and regret and the fierce anger.
Your stories break my heart, David. She does not tell him that; instead she adjusts her skirt and clears her throat, "It needs some work. And this character – Jonathan, is it? I don't like him." She's a terrible liar.
Because if she wants to admit it or not he's a brilliant writer. And she's jealous.
He's standing up from his chair, throwing his pen down on the table and taking a long deep drag of his cigarette. For some reason – she can't explain it – she loves the smell of his cigarettes.
"I didn't really invite you over to discuss character development. And Joseph is fine. That's the way he's suppose to be."
"I thought his name was Jonathan." She is intrigued by his characters, by the way that he brings them to live. She can almost see them standing in front of her.
David turns his back on her. "Jonathan, Joseph, what's the difference?" There is a difference, but since he is obviously shrugging it away like it does not matter she does not bring it up again.
"Well, you asked my opinion…that's why I'm here?"
O, David, if I should be quite honest with you, I'm here because you've got the clearest blue eyes in the world and I'm utterly obsessed with you. And I already feel naked and white as a freshly washed sheet blowing in the wind, lifted from the line with a sharp pull, soaring away on the wind.
He is taking another drag of the cigarette, shrugging and then turning around, a wicked grin on his face. "O, really?"
She blushes and says the first thing that comes up in her mind, "Your room smells lovely in the heat of summer." He raises his eyebrow and the blush deepens.
"And why is that?" Wicked, wicked grin.
"It smells like leather and khaki and starch and Old Spice… of soap… and notebooks and paper and pen." Of man… of writing… the room smells of writing and the writer hard at work behind his desk. Most of all though - and this she dare not ever mention to him - I can almost smell, very faintly, blood and smoke and fire still lingering in everything he owns.
"Fuck, what a mouthful." She can't answer him – his swearing always makes her wince. She is a lady of good graces. "You mean it smells of man…?"
She looks away, catching again a glimpse of a chest in a corner of the room.
Is that where you hide your secrets, David Webster?
"Don't tell me. You want to hear war stories. For your writing? Am I a character, Louisa?"
"No. Of course not." She feels extremely silly. Because I'm lying and he knows it. She expects him to be angry, but he looks rather disappointed. Frowning makes him look mean and tough. Unsafe. Untouchable. But also vulnerable. Now at that he'll just laugh. Or worse. A part of me doesn't want to think of him holding a gun.
The frown disappears, is replaced for a millisecond by flashing anger and then he just seems frustrated, pulling his hands through his hair.
"I've got to go." My skirt falls back neatly as I get up.
Gently, but very firmly he pushes me back.
Pulse racing, cheeks flaming up, heart in my throat. O, David, what firm hands you have…
He's on the bed next to her now, with his hand at the nape of her neck, playing with the crisp and taut material of her shirt's collar.
"Do you want to know how many German's I've killed?" He whispers the words at her jaw, with his mouth lightly brushing her skin.
He must be able to see the throbbing vein in my neck letting blood stream through my body. Little veins fill up like rivers being overrun by winter rains, bulging and breaking the confinements of soft, soil banks.
He takes the hand in her lap and puts it on the top most button of his shirt. It slips open easily before she can even stop herself, but her fingers are suddenly clumsy, stupid, sweaty, making the second button more difficult. With one swift moment he pulls the shirt over his head, sending it flying into a corner.
Typically.
And the whole time he is holding her with that icy gaze.
Her hand is pulled to his chest and she knows that she is not in the least bit interested in resisting.
Mere infatuation. That's all.
She is telling herself that she does not care about his stupid short stories that touch those deeply hidden parts of her. Hidden like a chest full of precious secrets at the bottom of a linen closet or beneath a dusty set of stairs, that a boy can only open after something has broken in himself and he has become a man.
O, David, with the white as death skin and the hair on his chest and the hard stomach.
He is serious. Almost too serious. He is always locked in this room.
I guess I don't really want to know how many German's he has killed, no. So she does not answer him. She cannot think with her hand on his feverishly warm chest rising and falling evenly beneath her fingers. For him to be so warm is the last thing she expected.
"Quiet now, are we?" Devilish grin. What is she suppose to say? "At least now I know how to shut you up."
She jerks her hand away from his chest; I need to get out of here. "I'm not doing this."
"Doing what?" She wants to slap the smile off his face.
"Whatever this is?"
"I'm not doing anything you don't want me to…" His hand is lightly turning her face in his direction, and his mouth is back at her neck… at her jaw…at the corner of her mouth. Just a soft whisper. Her mouth is already open when he kisses her.
I thought I was alive, but until this moment I must have been the walking dead.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE WHILE I'VE
BEEN THE WALKING DEAD.
And she knows he's thinking it too, because whereas the kiss is soft and gentle and tentative at first, his mouth quickly turns into a fierce storm raging and breaking itself on her, with his tongue a sweeping wave, a swelling tide.
And she is a bruised and broken shore before he has even really started. With hands at his shoulders and chest and arms, clinging on for dear life. Because I'm afraid to let go, I'm afraid of all life leaving me, of turning back into the dead girl I was before this moment.
He pushes her back onto the bed rather roughly. Stockings rip as his hands take hold of her thighs; the skirt is pushed up her legs. I'm breathing, not breathing.
Breathing, not breathing.
Breathing…
Not…
Breathing.
And then he pulls away for two seconds. And her heart stops beating at his words. "Let me…," with that intense gaze, "Let me make love to you."
xxx
Afterwards she trashes the scraps of paper in the bin.
There is no point in obsessing about broken men.