He had to wait. He lingered until at least one song was through before he slipped into his customary spot, tucked away at the tall table near the back corner where he could mostly hide in the shadow. It wasn't a particularly good spot but no one ever seemed to notice him there, which made it one of the best seats in the house in his mind.
She seemed to be searching the room, and when her eyes finally found him he knew that he had been seen. He could see it in the way her posture shifted. He leaned forward against the table and watched as she tucked the flower carefully into her pinned curls.
It was a silly thing, seeing the half dead thing hang there. It was the palest pink and it hardly matched her dark lips and black dress. He only thought that the next one should be red.
Christine always sang sadly, but that night there was something particularly compelling in it. He couldn't quite be sure if there was actually something different or whether the difference was simply that she told him that it was for him. She shivered, she closed her pretty blue eyes to him, and there was something there that he simply couldn't look away from.
She had a million secrets and he wanted to pluck every one of them from her. He wanted to learn every hidden freckle, what exactly had led her to that tiny, hidden stage. He wanted to know what exactly it was that she tucked behind the fearless sort of bravado she hid herself in.
Every inflection of her voice, every guarded look she gave him, he wanted to pick them apart.
He wanted to see her on something more than the tiny chatter-crowded stage. It was true that she would break his heart; she already had by simply existing.
He could reach out and touch her, if he could only bring himself to, but she seemed a mere figment of his imagination.
For the first time in his life, Erik thought that he might actually be afraid of something. A funny thing, that it would be a girl less than half his size with a dying flower tucked in her hair.
The only thing that he did know, by the end of her set, was that he couldn't wait a full seven days to see her again.
There was no way of knowing what exit she typically used, or how long she lingered at the end of the night. He hadn't ever waited around long enough to find out, preferring to disappear before anyone could approach him and tell him that his presence was undesirable as though he wasn't already aware of it.
And afterwards, you can tell me whether you still have no heart.
He opted to wait by the alleyway door. If she was going to seek him out, it was the only place that he could think she would know to check. Besides that fact, it was fairly dark between the close buildings and it was the best place for him to disappear from prying eyes. He could not hide nearly as well under the bright streetlights, and so it seemed the only choice to be made.
Erik had only just been ready to give up when she finally stepped into the alleyway, lacking the jacket she had worn earlier in the day and the flower still hanging from her hair. It seemed to only take a moment for her eyes to find him, lingering across the way.
"It's a perennial," she said.
He could see the goosebumps forming on her skin from feet away, but she hardly even shivered. "I don't know flowers," he answered, frowning slightly. "I only knew that it was pretty."
Her steps were confident as she approached him. "I sang for you tonight," she said, standing so near that he would touch her accidentally if he only shifted. "Do you have a heart?"
"Not even a beat," he answered, watching her face closely. Something was different and he couldn't quite place it. "You have a lovely voice, Christine."
Her smile was far easier. "It's cold," she said, giving an exaggerated shiver.
And it was. Erik had been freezing for at least a month now, and her bare arms were nothing but raised goosebumps. He could see her breath. He wasn't sure what he would do without it, but he found himself unzipping his new jacket anyway, ready to hand it to her.
And he would have, if she wouldn't have stopped him by covering his hand with hers. "I have to help tear down," she mumbled.
"Of course."
"Would you wait for me?" she asked softly.
He swallowed, staring back at her and her enlarged pupils. "Of course," he repeated slowly.
"Even in the cold?"
The only thing he could do was nod. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that he would be out in the cold regardless of whether it was there or elsewhere. He had exactly two dollars left in his pocket and it wasn't going to take him far.
She chewed on the inside of her lip thoughtfully. "Come inside with me," she murmured.
"I will be asked to leave."
When she pulled at his hand, he let her, drawing it between them and wrapping her hand around his palm as she stared down at them. "No one will see you," she murmured. "Come with me, Erik. Please."
When she took a step back, tugging on his hand, he found himself compelled to follow. Powerless, even, to disobey the way that she pulled at him. It was all in his head, he was sure of that. The slight girl couldn't match him in strength and if he wanted to pull away, she wouldn't have been able to stop him.
It wasn't her physical strength. It was her eyes. Her sad eyes and her breathy laugh, her pretty curls that looked so incredibly soft.
The door closed behind them, and almost immediately she was finishing the job he had begun, her fingers unzipping his jacket with ease and moving to tug at his worn belt.
"What are you doing."
"You have no heart," she said, finally feeding the creased leather through the buckle of the belt. "Do you like whiskey, Erik?"
The only thing that he could do was let his hands hover somewhere near her elbows, too frightened to actually stop her. "Yes," he answered breathlessly.
"I think it's whiskey, in that one," she said, gesturing toward a tall crate pushed against the grey cement wall. "I want you to fuck me on the whiskey, and then we will drink it. Romance."
"Christine." He had been wrong. She hadn't stolen his breath, that first time. No, this time she had stolen his breath, paralyzed his lungs. Even had he wanted to, he wasn't sure that he would have been able to stop her as she unbuttoned his pants.
"You do want to fuck me, don't you?" she murmured.
"You will get a sliver," he answered breathlessly, unable to look at anything except for the rough crate across the room as her fingers caressed the shape of him through his boxers.
"Well, that's what makes it exciting," she answered, letting go of him and taking a step backwards. He caught his slightly oversized jeans with one hand, eyes watching her suspiciously as she took slow backwards steps, her hands sliding under her silky dress.
The thong that dropped to the floor was black and she stepped out of it with practiced ease.
"On the whisky, Erik," she said again, pulling herself onto the edge of the crate and gathering her skirt up as she spread her knees open. "You have no heart and I would like to fuck you, too."
It was a terrible idea, horrible, he thought as he gazed at her, at her pale, round knees and the heel of her black pump that was tapping rhythmically against the side of the wooden crate. He took a step toward her and she spread her arms wide, almost as though it were in celebration.
He did, in fact, have a heart. He knew because it was suddenly racing so intensely he thought it might beat straight through his ribcage.
When he was close enough, that same heel that had been bouncing off of the crate wrapped behind his knee and she tugged him closer.
There was quiet for a moment, rustling fabric and the clang of his belt as she reached between them.
The only thought in his head when her hand wrapped around him was that he wasn't sure how it was so warm when he could still see clearly defined goosebumps lining her pale arms and neck.
"I will fuck you on the whiskey," she murmured, tilting her chin up to look at him as her warm hand pumped slowly. "And next week you will be gone, because you are exactly like most men."
He wasn't sure how exactly it was that he could hear her through the blood rushing through his eardrums. "You're wrong," he answered, doing his best to hold eye contact with her.
"Touch me, Erik," she murmured, her voice low.
So he did. The pads of his fingers brushed feather-light against the raised goosebumps on her arms, over the half-inch straps of her dress, up her slender throat until the tips of his fingers rested just under her chin. He swallowed thickly as he gazed at her face, at her pretty blue eyes, her small nose, her plump, darkly colored lips.
"You can kiss me," she said softly. "If you truly have no heart."
With the invitation so blatantly given, Erik found that he had no choice, heart or not. In that moment, he very much felt that he may die if he didn't feel her lips, if he didn't learn exactly how soft they were for himself.
He had never kissed anyone before, but she didn't seem to mind his hesitation. Her soft lips still brushed gently against his, and he thought that she may have gotten a head start. He could already taste whiskey on her breath.
His lips were still against hers when her second heel dug against his calf, when she bumped him closer and slid her hips to the edge of the crate.
They swallowed each other's gasps when she thrust herself upon him.
Her eyes were closed tightly when she let her head fall back, exposing her pale throat and spilling her curls down her back as she rolled herself against him a second time. Following her lead, he rolled forward against her, and found himself rewarded with a breathy sort of sound from her lips.
Her hand was still warm when it found his, and she guided it blindly to her breast.
It wasn't so difficult, learning what exactly it was that she wanted. Gentle touches, experimental gropes, he listened closely to every sound she made, watched the tension in her brow.
His hand slid around her back and when he leaned over her, desperate for a better angle, she made no complaint, letting her back rest against the rough crate and walking her heels up just a bit higher.
The next kiss was initiated by her, and he thought that she was simply using it to muffle her moan as her nails dug into the sleeves of his jacket.
For the first time in weeks, Erik was actually warm, beyond warm, and when he shuddered, he couldn't bring himself to do anything other than lean over her, feeling her hot breath against his throat and chin.
There was silence, and for a moment he thought something was wrong. Her hands twisted nervously against his sleeves, the breath that she took was shaky, but it passed just as suddenly as it seemed to come.
She blinked up at him, and pressed her warm palms firmly against his chest. "Get up," and she breathed it urgently, so urgently that it almost sounded like a panic, but she took a slow breath and her next words were much calmer. "I want a drink."
She was gorgeous, he thought, and he certainly had a heart.
She flinched just the slightest bit when he pulled out of her, but when she slipped from the edge of the crate and her feet found the floor, it was almost as though nothing had happened at all.
She lifted the edge of the crate as he pulled himself back together, and it wasn't until she selected a bottle that he noticed the way her fingers shook.
"Will you bring me flowers next week?" she asked, twisting the cap of the bottle off without looking at him.
"Every week," he answered.
"I don't believe you," she said, frowning and holding the bottle toward him. "Will you please get that out? I never can."
He found his pocket knife and popped the pour-control cap off easily, holding the bottle back toward her. "You don't have to believe me," he said as she took it.
She frowned and lifted the bottle to her lips, taking a deep drink as she leaned against the side of the crate. Without looking, she held the bottle toward him again.
He took it easily, and the drink he took was far smaller than her own.
"I like lilacs," she said, her voice small and quiet.
"Lilacs," he echoed, holding the bottle back out toward her. They were long out of season and he wasn't sure where he would ever find one, but he would remember it anyway. "Of course."
She took another swig from the bottle and wiped at her mouth with the back of her wrist. "Magenta ones," she added, finally glancing at him.
"Magenta lilacs," he repeated, watching her closely. "I will remember, Christine. And I will bring you a flower."
"I'll forget your name again," she mumbled, running her thumb along the glass lip of the bottle.
"Then I will remind you."
She huffed out a laugh that he wasn't sure was actually a laugh and glanced down the long cement hallway he had first wandered down. "You have to go," she murmured. "Or someone will see you."
He wasn't sure that it was true, but he was sure that he didn't want her to stop stepping out into the alleyway, so he fixed his jacket and zipped it. "I will bring you a lilac," he promised.
She didn't answer, and when he stepped back out into the blistering cold, she didn't move an inch.