Purgatory's Gate

Chapter 12: The eagle

The trip home is all too swift for me. The wilderness was free. The wilderness was safe. No one could hunt me out there. I had a certain measure of freedom I shall not find again.
And his kiss still burns in my mouth.
We say nothing though. And I commend us on our maturity. It's rare and I personally am proud of us. We're doing quite well. Beautifully I might say. We say and do nothing, operating as normal. If the guests saw anything they do not question it. They all had a good time, and gush about the lights and seeing the Milky Way. The dogs are panting and happy by the time we make it back to the lodge. It's after four and the sun is setting. I won't be on shift I know. Zev and I get the guests settled, and put away the skis and gear. I'm versed enough to help him now. And we do so in companionable silence. It's not even awkward. It should be when I can still taste his wildness in my mouth. But I'm weirdly calm. Like I'm glad to be close to him and that he's not angry with me. I can't imagine loving me and not growing angry with me. But of course he doesn't love me.
We drift inside to check in with Love. Rudi bounces up to hug us in turn. Zev automatically sweeps her into his arms.
"Was it boring while I was gone? Did you get rid of some of the guests for me?" He asks, holding her on his hip easily, her arms hanging on his neck. And for a moment I wonder in another world and a better lifetime. Someone else's lifetime. Getting to watch him scoop up our child. A safe quiet life full of routine and school books. Getting to kiss him in the dark once the kids are in bed.
"Yes, you cook better than Mrs. V," Rudi says, "We've got more guests though. Not less."
"Drat, one out of two isn't bad, where's your mother? Got to tell her Orestes is still alive," Zev says, cheerfully. No sign he can feel my kiss as well as I can his. Like it never even happened.
Love materializes and surprises me with a hug after hugging her brother. I'm glad of it though. I don't remember the last time someone walked up and just hugged me as a manner of greeting, and that I wanted it.
"It was beautiful, thank you for letting me go," I say, because of course she was in charge of the schedule.
"I'm glad it worked out, he didn't work you too hard?" Love asks, punching her brother's arm fondly.
"No," I say.
"He's lying as usual, I'm going to go check my kitchen," Zev says.
"Don't you dare touch that dough," Mrs. V appears to go follow him.
"You had a good time?" Love asks, frowning.
"Yes, I just look awful without make up," I say, rubbing my face, "No, I did, seriously."
"All right, you're off schedule obviously, tonight and I've got you starting at noon tomorrow sound good?" Love asks.
"Absolutely, yeah, ah, thanks again," I say, picking up my bag.
And I go back to my lonely room. It wasn't lonely till today.
I think I'm going mad.
I drop the backpack by the door and lie down on the bed. Window covered, and blinds taped down. Door locked twice and jammed with the nightstand. My clothes folded neatly in the dresser. iPad lying charging by the bed. And nothing but shadows. And cobwebs. I can stare at the ceiling and watch the spider spin her web. No flies now in the dead of winter. Nothing to catch. I don't know how the spider has lived this long. But she builds her web anyway. For nothing.
I get up and pace. I shower, and shave which I sorely need. I wash the last of the stuff out of my heavily peroxided hair. The roots are going dark again. But I don't care.
I lie back down on the bed, fingering the arrowhead around my neck. I don't know my path anymore. Because now my path is supposed to be happy. My past is supposed to be behind me. I'm supposed to be done with locked doors. And loneliness. My mission now is to be happy. I get to have that. I am supposed to have that.
I pace. I pace for hours just thinking. My hands to my head. Looking down at my bare feet on the floor.
I've spent my whole life in someone else's story. Playing games. Being who they wanted me to be. And now I don't know who I am anymore. But I want to find out. I want to find my way. I am on my way to being who I hid so carefully all along. And I've been too long behind a locked door. Hidden in my web of lies and secrets and rituals and masks. I want to be free.
I get up. I'm barefoot. This is incredibly stupid. I know that. It's nearly midnight by now. I unlock the door. And I move the nightstand. And I step out into the cold. My feet are bare on the icy deck. I walk around the bunk house. Third door down is Zev's. I know because it has a charming 'keep out trespassers will be struck with lightening' sign on it. I know it well.
I knock then nearly lose my nerve.
But Zev answers, almost immediately. He's wearing no shirt, just sweats, he's barefoot too. Behind him I can see a rock salt lamp glowing. The smell of incense drifts out.
"I um—I don't—remember, why this isn't a good idea," I say, gesturing between us.
"Nor do I," he says, softly.
"Can you accept the risk of losing me, if while you have me you get everything I am? Cause I don't know what that is anymore. But I know I want you, and I don't care what comes in that because I am done weighing everything because being safe doesn't matter anymore, if I'm not happy. I'm not playing games I've spent my entire life playing games and I'm telling you right now I'm weird and I'm fucked up and I can't do anything about that but if you'll take that, take all that I am and everything you don't know I am. Then fucking take me," I sigh.
"Come inside," he says, softly, and he takes my hand and draws me into the dark room. I let him, I'm nearly shivering with cold now.
"Of course I want you," he says, putting a hand gently through the snow in my hair, "I just don't want to hurt you."
"Go ahead and hurt me. I just want to feel something," I say.
"I'm going to protect you," he says, sliding his hands down my arms.
Then he kisses me again. It's different this time, stronger, more sure that he has me. He guides his hands expertly down my back, like the kiss makes him stronger somehow. I kiss him back, weak and cold and needing so badly to be loved right now I don't care what tomorrow brings.
His room is warm and dark. His curtains are pulled but not secured so moonlight drifts in between the panels, throwing light on the smooth curves of the muscles in stomach. I kiss him fiercely as we make our way back to the bed. He pushes off clothes and things he was unpacking, including a knife and his backpack itself. Then he tugs me into bed with him, just kissing me expertly like he knows how I needed to be kissed. He kisses every rose on my arm, working his way around my shoulders before slowly sliding off my sweat pants.
I haven't done this. I haven't done this in so long and I certainly haven't done this anywhere so safe or secure. So fully sober. I'm usually drunk, liquid courage as it were, and by the time we get to this stage we're usually high. I think the last sober kiss I had was a college classmate. He kissed me in the bathroom. And I was scared because I didn't want my family to kill him.
I'm not scared right now. I'm free. I don't know how many versions of my past had to die for this to happen. But I'd gladly strangle every ghost of me if it means tonight lasts forever. I'm being held here in the dark. I'm warm. I'm safe. I don't feel hunted. And for a few precious hours I don't feel alone. I wish I could have known ten years ago I'd have this moment. I prayed for it but I didn't believe it. I wanted to believe all my childhood someday that place of hope was waiting. But it was hazy, in the distance. I was never free enough to see it.
But now I do.
I can be happy again. I can be loved again. Someone can want me as I am. With my past and all the dead versions of me crowding in the room. We don't see them in the dark. We have each other.
And him? He's ten thousand mysteries. I'll get to them all if he'll let me. Right now I know the way he likes it when I kiss his neck. And that's all I need. That and the way his blue eyes flash in the moonlight as he whispers his name for me. We're half tangled in the sheets. He still smells beautifully of his precious wilderness. Like the wild seeps through him and he belongs more in it than in the world. Like years from now I'll still find him in moonlight and snow covered mountains. The echoes of everything he loved remaining with me even when he's long gone.
But tonight he's mine. And I'm happy with that. I want to keep him this way forever. Free and raw and ready to have me. He holds me like he's practiced a thousand lifetimes. Like we existed before in the footnotes of a greek tragedy. And now we find each other again in the moonlight, and the safety of his bed.
And the door we didn't bother to lock. And I know and don't care. He'll hold me in his arms and I'll die here gladly. It's not that I don't believe the monsters exist anymore. It's that I no longer fear them. I'm not alone.
I fall asleep in his arms. He just holds me, nestling his face into the curve of my neck. He's much stronger than I am, and his arms are thick as they cradle me to him. Like he fears losing me in the night. I cannot remember when someone last held me like this. Certainly never in my dreams, or in the dead of night. Sure and sober and protecting me, loving me on purpose. Knowing all that I am and staying anyway. Making the choice to hold me to him so when he sleeps I will not leave.
I don't even want to sleep then. Not when I know the peace of his arms. A peace I haven't felt since my childhood. Warm and secure and no longer alone. I've been alone for twenty years. And now I'm finally home again.
The arrowhead is cool against my skin as he cradles me to his chest. The blankets mostly over us, his skin is warm and still smells of the woods. I don't want to surrender to sleep where I'll lose this moment. But eventually I do. Because I had tonight now. I had tonight.