Chapter 1 Chapter notes

Written in first-person present tense from Edward's POV, we begin at the beginning: The first day of his and Bella's senior year of high school.

He muses about the stark disparity between his omnipotent vampire nature and Bella's frail humanity. He marvels at her blithe acceptance of him and his family, wondering what more he can do to convince her that he is dangerous.

Alice appears at his door with a troubling pronouncement: She can't see the end of the school year for any of them. Something is coming. Some kind of trouble, and it has her worried.

She has seen that they'll have a discussion about an upcoming sexual relationship between him and Bella, and an embarrassing (for Edward) but instructive sex talk ensues.

So, away we go. Read carefully, because there's going to be a test later.

The chapter title belongs to Jorma Kaukonen

Chapter 1 Friday, September 1st 3 am

I sit alone in my room, waiting for the sun to rise on a momentous day: the freaking 26th time I will enter my senior year of high school. Unbelievable. And only in Forks would they be so perverse as to start the school year on a Friday.

The classes available at this tiny school will afford me no new knowledge; indeed, I could easily teach them all without a text. I long for subject matter that will enthrall, that will amaze—Communications Technology or Quantum Mechanics—but am instead awarded with a schedule containing World History, English, Economics, PE, Algebra, and due to a computer error, Drama.

And that I will excel in, because drama is basically playing pretend. And the Cullens have been doing that for as long as there have been Cullens.

We pretend so well, and have been pretending for so long, that we tend to blend in seamlessly with the human world. We rarely make mistakes. After decades of attending high school, we 'younger' Cullens have perfected the pretense, have honed our acting skills in bleak anticipation of yet another academic year. It is simply a way of passing time otherwise spent watching game shows or staring at the ceiling—a pointless, banal exercise in predictable tedium.

Of course, Bella cannot truly grasp the monotony, the sheer dreariness, of this particular exercise, because she's done it only once. As a human, she can't comprehend what it is to be an Immortal, to be denied the gentle repose of sleep, to forever be separated from the sun, to lose all longing for a good burger or sumptuous dessert, and instead thirst for the sticky sustenance of blood. Her first true glimpse into this side of reality will be when she opens her eyes after her sweltering transformation, when she's part of it, and not an onlooker, peering in from the periphery.

Bella's unwavering faith in me is endearing, but also frustrating. She refuses to see that I am a predator—that I am dangerous—even though I purposely show her examples of my strength, speed and invulnerability. I think that when she looks at me, she just sees a regular guy, because that is the mask I must wear to fit into her world.

But I'm not a regular guy.

In fact, I'm not a guy at all, but a being with perfect memory, unparalleled senses, and uncanny cognition.

A few months ago, I engaged in a brief but animated conversation with a tourist from Belarus at the gas station. Later, Bella asked me how many languages I could speak. I declined to say, 'all of them'.

Instead, I had muttered a half-truth, telling her that I could learn a language in a matter of weeks, as it took time to either visit a place and interact with the locals, or track down recordings of the various dialects. It was a non-answer, but she hadn't pressed me.

To be fair, there are many obscure languages that I have not bothered to learn—all 19,500 dialects in India, for example—focusing instead on the top three. But I can travel nearly anywhere in the world and communicate with the locals, right off the bus.

When Bella questioned my mood of quiet concentration one day over the summer, I hesitated to impart that I was listening to enzymes flood her small intestine, eager to aid in the digestion of starches from the quinoa she'd eaten for breakfast.

As we walked down a trail in the Olympic National Park only yesterday, Bella had looked up to the dark clouds, massing along the eastern edge of the tree line, and wondered when it would begin to rain. By turning my face to the sky, I silently predicted when the drops would fall and for how long, based on the relative humidity that struck my skin. As we walked, I knew, based on the vibrations absorbed by my feet, the type of soil or rock that was under me.

I don't share these experiences with Bella, not because they are secret but because she has no frame of reference with which to process them. She perversely accepts the fact that my body will only accept blood as a nutrient; that is just about as far as she'll be able to travel on the supernatural highway until she traverses that road for herself.

We are not gods, but I often wonder how many god myths were founded upon events shaped by human interactions with Immortal beings like myself. Primitive cultures would consider us omnipotent. Alice is able to discern future events with chilling accuracy; I can read (almost all) minds that stray too near my path. We seem to magically appear and disappear, simply due to our speed and grace. We do not consume food nor do we sleep.

As I ponder these deep thoughts, Alice pads softly down the hallway. "Come in," I say with a sigh. She's seen my angst, I'm sure, and is here to utter some platitudes to make me feel better.

I'm surprised when she enters my room and sits across from me on a cushion. She frowns and I see the swirl of words in her head, but I don't react. "I see the beginning of the school year, Edward, but I can't see the end."

Our eyes meet. "Explain that, please."

"Something happens to divert the course of the normal school year. I can't tell what yet, as decisions haven't been made."

"Natural disaster? Conscious choice? Can you see anything?"

She furrows her brow. "I can't tell. We start school. I see us there today, but after today, it gets murky. There are so many threads that I can't see where they lead." I look into her mind and see chaos. It's usually filled with an incomprehensible array of pictures, words and threads that I can never interpret but she has no trouble with, but today it's a confusing mess.

Alice taps her lip with one finger. "Keep an ear out for anything unusual. Something is coming, but I can't see its shape yet." I nod and she frowns. "What's wrong? You look aggravated."

"Same old argument. Bella wants to be changed yesterday, while I'm trying to at least get her to graduation."

"She pestered you all summer, didn't she? I tried not to look, but I still saw, sometimes."

"Only every day. And I can't keep her hands off of me. It makes it hard to concentrate if I have to keep telling her not to French kiss me." Alice smirks. I shake my head. "I had to tell her again last week to keep her tongue out of my mouth. She surprised me with a very…enthusiastic kiss, and the venom just overfloweddown my chin and dissolved part of my shirt pocket."

She laughs. "So that's what happened to it. I saw it in the trash and wondered. I haven't been consciously looking at much besides Jasper, as we've kept pretty much to ourselves over the summer. I'm worried about him at school."

Our eyes meet and I see what she hasn't wanted to admit. Jasper, walking with her down a trail in the National Park. Coming upon some hikers as a breeze wafts their scent his way. Alice wrestling him into some brush and biting him on the neck to get him to calm down.

I raise an eyebrow. "It's been over two years since his last kill and he's still out of control. And this is what you want for Bella?"

"Not what I want, Edward. What I see. I know that when you look at Bella, you imagine life and hope and continuity, in the form of a future, meaningful work, a husband and a child, a home. But she only sees a future with you." She shows me again the vision of Bella as a member of our family, with red eyes and cold, white skin. I shudder.

"If you had come upon Jasper when he was seventeen years old, could you have made the decision to end his life?"

She cringes and glares and me. That's different.

"No, Alice. It's not."

While I wrestle with the profound philosophical issue of whether it is moral or ethical to inflict a life-ending wound to my girlfriend so we can exist together throughout eternity, Bella continues to grow older. I stopped aging at seventeen; she will cease to be the same age when she celebrates her eighteenth birthday next week. The fear of growing old haunts her and she is determined to end her human life before even another year passes.

Alice looks at me and I am appalled to see the conversation we're about to have. I edge to my window, fully intending to escape, when she tuts at me. "I've seen this, Edward. You have questions. I can help you."

I stand with my back to her, as it's easier to talk about these things when I don't have to look at her sorrowful face, full of the answer she knows I won't accept.

Truly, this is a conversation that I need to have with somebody, but why Alice?

She waits for a moment to see if I'll make a run for it, and when she sees that I'm resigned to sticking it out, says, "We're alone in the house. You know this. And I know you couldn't bear to have the rest of the family hear about your sexual history."

"Lack of sexual history," I clarify.

"So, you are a virgin."

Slowly, I nod.

"So, no getting it on with Tanya."

Deep breath. "No."

I hear her pat the couch cushion. "Come sit down."

Reluctantly, I walk to the sofa and sit on the edge. We look at each other, and I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. Alice waits patiently and finally says, "Have you considered engaging in a sexual relationship with Bella? You've been together for months now."

"Um," my brows draw together and I think for a moment. "Um, I…I'm not sure."

She nods. "I can't see what will happen between you and Bella, sexwise. There are too many threads out there and they intersect in ways that obscure the end result, so I can counsel you but not give you a prediction."

Which is good, I guess, as I hadn't been about to ask for either. I was simply going to lust from afar, keeping my hands off of Bella, and hopefully, her hands off of me, until and if she joined me here, on the other side of reality.

"When you and Bella finally decide that the time has come for sexual union, you will both have no experience in this area." I nod again.

"Ask me your questions." I can feel a pained expression growing on my face, because, until this moment, I hadn't had any questions. But now, they flood my mind, tumbling over one another in their quest to be acknowledged, to be answered.

I lick my lips and consider my sister. Of all my family members, she is perhaps the one best suited for this conversation. She can, after all, tell me what a woman expects out of a lover, but I feel shy about discussing it. She waits patiently and I decide to take advantage of her willingness to advise me.

"Well, I think that Bella would like to engage in sex with me, but I don't know how to touch her without hurting her."

That wasn't exactly a question, but perhaps it will get the ball rolling. As a bit of an icebreaker, Alice throws her head back and laughs out loud. "Oh please! Her pheromones are all over you!"

She chuckles some more and continues. "We all know that I have the keenest nose." She wrinkles the object in question, and I have to agree. Even though we all have heightened senses, some of us are better at certain things, just like humans. Alice could smell a deer print, never mind the actual deer, miles away. She could detect an insect at fifty paces.

"Edward, all animals emit pheromones that are detectable by the opposite sex. Bella's are especially potent, and have been clinging to you, your clothes and your car since the first day you sat next to her in Biology. She wants you. No doubt. Next question."

"How can I pleasure Bella without hurting her, or god forbid, killing her? I'm worried that my weight and my…size…will damage her internally."

I guess all jokes are behind us as Alice takes on the mien of an instructor. She raises an index finger. "First, human women are elastic. They have babies, after all, so don't picture the vagina as a rigid tube. It stretches. Second, prop your weight on your elbows. This isn't difficult to do. Human men do it as well, as it allows the woman more freedom to move."

I nod thoughtfully. "Move? I've seen movies of course, and read about this, but I don't know if Bella has. How—"

"Tell her, Edward. Tell her to move in synchrony with you. That she needs to flex the muscle that she uses to urinate. Tell her to push and pull that muscle in order to achieve a climax."

I swallow, trying to visualize this conversation with Bella, and coming up blank.

Alice purses her lips to hide her smile.

"What?"

She gives her head a little shake. "She's almost eighteen years old, Edward. You say she's a virgin, but certainly she knows a little about sex." She pauses, and adds hesitantly, "About masturbation?"

"It's not something we've ever discussed," I say with some asperity.

"Well, she wants you. I can't imagine it will be difficult for her to reach orgasm. Just…try to keep her tongue out of your mouth!" She laughs and then slaps her hand over her mouth. "Sorry. Sorry!"

I look straight at her without blinking and she holds up a hand. "You're just so uptight, Edward. Try to relax."

"It's difficult to relax when I'm afraid I'll accidentally kill my human girlfriend during sex, Alice. When you bed Jasper, you don't have to worry that you'll fracture his spine or crush his larynx."

"Yeah. You're right." She thinks for a moment. "I don't remember my human life, so I can't tell you what a human woman needs, exactly. Just, go slow. Make sure you and she can communicate easily and stop if you hurt her."

"Okay." I sigh and look away from her piercing gaze.

"This is what I recommend. Missionary position so she can achieve her climax, but change positions before you reach your own." She worries her lip for a moment. "The need to bite is very strong then, as I'm sure you know, so taking her from the back would be the safest way to continue."

"From the back." I'm trying to divorce this conversation from an actual situation between Bella and me and turn it into a simple instructive lesson, and having little success.

She nods enthusiastically. "It's exciting to be taken that way. Use your imagination, Edward." In her thoughts I see the different positions that would keep my mouth far from her neck, or any flesh, really.

Our eyes meet, and hers are full of understanding and compassion. There's no embarrassment or humor. "But she's so soft, Alice. I could break her back."

"Well, I think you two will have to experiment. Maybe engage in some mutual masturbation while you watch each other. Then, move on to touching each other only. See how the excitement makes you feel. Then, as you progress, let her put her mouth on you, although I don't recommend the other way around.

"Just go slow, and pay attention to her moves and the sounds she makes. And tell her that if you ever feel your self-control slipping, you won't be able to continue." She pauses for a moment. "I don't want to leave you with the impression that this isn't dangerous. There is always the possibility of injury. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't make you aware of that."

"I did actually know that, Alice." I roll my eyes and she makes a face.

"Yeah. But you and Bella should make an agreement ahead of time that if she's somehow injured to the point of impending death or incapacitation, you'll change her right away. Talk about it and get it out of the way. You have great self-control, so I don't think you will ever hurt her, but this way, the decision has been made by both of you."

I look around the room, imagining this talk with Bella. She already wants to join my family. She'll love the condition. "It's a good idea. I'll…discuss it with Bella when the time comes."

She rises from the cushions in a single, fluid move. Her smile is infectious. "Just remember, Edward, people have sex because it's fun. It's relieving, and it's a way to share love and affection. Nothing can make you and Bella closer than a healthy sex life, and I think you can manage that with some practice."

"Thanks." I grind my teeth and she smiles at me.

"Okay. Love you!" She darts out of the room and disappears down the hall. Her thoughts are only on Jasper. Always, always, on Jasper.

I sit back on my couch, thinking this is just about the most disturbing conversation I've ever had. With anyone. Ever. My family enjoy sex with their partners on a regular basis, so it's no big deal to them, but to me, the very idea of engaging in sexual activity with Bella is impossible…. Terrifying. Thrilling.

Unconsciously, my mind begins to plan. Where? When? And always the most important question of all. How?

The conversation with Alice has been disturbing but it's given me a lot to think about. Bella and I both want a physical relationship and the only thing keeping me from giving in is the fear of injury or death associated with the action, which, when you think about it, isn't much of an aphrodisiac.

Genesis

Noun: The origin, mode or formation of something

The time has come for us to pause
And think of living as it was
Into the future we must cross
And I'd like to go with you

You say I'm harder than a wall
A marble shaft about to fall
I love you dearer than them all
So let me stay with you
So let me stay with you

And as we walked into the day
Skies of blue had turned to grey
I might have not been clear to say
I never looked away