Page 5 of The Deer and the Dragon
I’d sworn to myself that I wouldn’t drink when sad, or bored, or angry. I’d allocated my love for controlled substances to writing, dating, and going of social outings. It was a rule I’d made in my era of sex work. From the shame-basedpublic narrative, I’d expected escorting to be drug-addled and woeful, doing lines to get through a session or to numb myself from an encounter. Instead, I made more money each working night than I could possibly spend in months, ate at the best restaurants on the planet, was flown to gorgeous locations, met a number of the world’s high-and-mighties, and was able to save up enough money to live exclusively off of what I’d set aside while I launched my creative career.
Still, I kept to my rule. I only drank to create, or in the company of friends. No matter how good it might feel to remain toasted around the clock.
(Kirby) Haven’t heard from you all day. You alive?
(Marlow) Ate, sent off pages, and I’m going to the aquarium this weekend.
(Kirby) Did you drink water?
(Marlow) What are you, my mom?
(Kirby) We both know I care way more about you than your mom does.
I closed the chat again without answering. My contentious relationship with my mother was no secret. I huffed loudly to the empty air as I grabbed a can of sparkling water from the fridge and curled into a ball on the couch.
Kirby hadn’t pushed the point any further. They didn’t dare repeat what they’d implied far too many times, but I could feel their pain. I was alone. I didn’t speak to my parents given the enormity of our religious fallout. After I’d grown too old for a fictional fox, the only creatures with whom I interacted were lukewarm romantic distractions that lasted anywhere from one night to six weeks. My friends insisted that an empire of nice apartments, designer shoes, bestselling novels, and complicated gadgets was worthless if I had no one to share them with.
My most promising shot at love had ended two months prior, on February 13.
For nearly three months, I’d come so close to falling for a girl with a bright Irish accent and a sparkling personality. Her name was Eve. She had hair so red that I would have sworn on a Bible it was fake, but she’d merely laughed and pulled up pictures of her as a toothless toddler with crimson curls. She was interesting, educated, grounded. She never asked anything from me, only offered encouragement and support. She loved my books, but not so much that it made me uncomfortable. She was never demanding of my time, energy, or attention. She was in STEM and easily one of the most intelligent people I’d ever met. Despite her laboratory work, she played the fiddle, spent most weekends singing folk songs at an Irish tavern, and had a ravishing gallery of photos in medieval cosplay. She was funny and kind and had Nia and Kirby enthusiastically planning our wedding after the second date. Our sex had been spectacular. She was everything I’d been looking for.
Almost.
After a tearful breakup over the phone where Eve had demanded to know what she’d done wrong, I’d uselessly repeated that she was perfect. She’d called me a coward for breaking up the day before Valentine’s Day, and she was probably right. But the holiday hadn’t been the only motivator. I knew exactly who and what was sabotaging my love life. My heart was spoken for as uselessly as if I’d fallen in love with a book character. If I couldn’t step out of my own hyper-fantasia, I’d never move on. I just needed to learn to channel the cup of imagination, containing it to its glass within my novels, not allowing it to spill out and get on my dress, drip down my inner thighs, ruin my panties, crumple my clothes to the floor, or create my outline against the wall-to-wall window overlooking the river.
And that’s why I huddled on my sofa, hugging my knees to my chest, and vowed that tonight would be the night. I had to tell him to stop visiting me.
I waited as the sky turned from blue to pink to black.
I crawled under the covers and stared at the silhouetted bottle of sleeping pills I’d forgone.
The bedside clock clicked from midnight to one to two in the morning.
It was 2:40 a.m. when I felt his presence. His weight pressed into the bed. The sheets shifted with his movements just as they might with a flesh-and-blood partner. My heart skipped painfully.
He pushed up against me, hands stroking, lips brushing, mouth sending chills up and down my spine as every inch of my skin rippled into gooseflesh. My body responded, wanting things that my heart and mind had forbidden. My hips arched with need, but they were traitors acting on their own volition. I’d rolled away, tucking my face against the pillow.
“Bad day, Love?”
“I’m not your love, Caliban.” I whispered the name I’d given him long ago. My choice had amused him, but he seemed to like it.
After a long pause in the darkness, he merely said, “You are.”
I stayed on my side, staring out the bedroom window at the naked, winter trees. There was a crescent moon that night, a sharp, bright sliver too thin to cast any light onto the evidence of madness between my four walls. I normally secured the curtains, but tonight I’d been trying to stay awake. I’d been waiting for him.
“You’re not real,” I whispered, speaking to the hallucination that held and broke my heart in the same hand. Loving him was my most foolish mistake. I didn’t want to be in love anymore.
Caliban’s cool breath moved a tuft of hair over the bare skin of my throat. His fingers glided along my jaw, cupping my chin. The scent of a green, misty forest consumed me. “If there’s anything I could do to change your mind, I’d do it. Ask it of me.”
“Caliban—”
He made a patient sound. “But you won’t. We’ve been through this,” he said. “I know you remember.”
My throat worked through my nerves, swallowing the lump of emotion, but I said nothing.
I couldn’t forget the last night I’d seen him, though I’d tried.
I’d been twenty-one for six months. Red and green and blue lasers of a sleazy club thumped through the memory. It was the night I’d graduated from college. I’d smelled like cigarette smoke and had done too many bumps in the bathroom. Despite the drunken fog that blurred the memory and the empty spaces where liquor had expunged details, I couldn’t let it go.
