My Lolita, Cassandra [RFK/Bobby Kennedy] (Alternate Universe)

Part Eighteen

"The Enchanted Hunters"

You and Robert allow silence to linger in the air as his Maserati takes you back to the hotel. You feel your pulse striking against your skin when he seemingly awaits you to speak up.

You clear your throat, catching his attention. "I didn't mean to gloss over what you said."

Robert lowers his gaze, dropping it on his lap.

"It's just that when we met last week... something happened." John happened. And his ravishing face, the honeyed voice, those nostalgic lips. You hate that they juxtaposed with their quintessences. Nothing about the hybrid man makes sense.

Robert lifts his head, swallowing, and his skin tugs at his Adam's apple. "What did?" He already knows.

"Something terrible. And it made me think about every decision I've made."

"Am I one of the bad ones?" His voice is weak and trembling, afraid of the imminent answer.

You swing your gaze at him. "No," you say. "Well, morally, yes. But personally... you're the best thing to ever happen to me." The glow in his tender eyes died a moment before you relight it again.

And there's that renaissance smile again; a work of art on its own. It's a shame you have to see it fade when you utter, "But you're also my friend's dad."

"Not very convenient, I know," he lightly says, a chuckle trailing behind. "But even with Leah... I keep thinking about us." Melancholy somehow seeps into his words as he speaks.

There's that word again: us. It rolls off the tongue smoothly; like spring water falling off a steep drop, like the fine hairs of a poplar tree swaying in the summer breeze, like red Jello on a slippery plate.

"Tell me what you're thinking, Cassandra," begs the man.

You catch your leg bouncing nervously while he keeps nodding to reassure you. "I've never been through this, so I don't know what to do or say."

He is taken aback by your words. "You've never been in love?" His tone is pitiful but manipulates you into thinking you're in a crazy little thing called love with him.

You decide to flip it around, "Are you in love with me?"

It backfires when he freely admits through poised language, "You're really gonna make me say it?" And slyly runs a wet tongue across his teeth.

His pale eyes meet your dilated ones, causing a volatile flame to burn brightly in your core; crackling and waiting impatiently to fulminate. Robert is a man of great composure, but with great power comes great amour propre; he's wise to the effect he has on you, and it paradoxically satisfies his insatiable appetite.

"We should look out for them..." you avert your eyes—inadvertently losing the game—to the building behind him.

He follows them, knowing all that's left to do is play the waiting game—for Diane, for Leah, and most importantly, for you. "They can't stay holed up in that room forever," he notes.

"You sure? They're teenagers." You feign composure amidst this. "We can stay holed up in about anything." The witty response earns you a fatherly smile from Robert.

A bit later, he reclines his seat to soothe his tired back, but his eyes remain glued to the hotel entrance. "Hey, while we wait..." he says, taking them off to glance at you. "Why don't you read me some more Lolita?"

You cease from languidly braiding your hair and reach for the book in the glove box, searching where you left off. He's hooked, just like his brother was, to the accursed book; like there is a divine force that solipsistically connects Nabokov's soul to theirs.