. III.
(Friday, 8:45 p.m.)
One, two, three, four, five.
Suddenly it all seemed so perfectly simple to her. There she was, standing by her bedroom window, running her fingers along the windowsill, feeling the sinew of the synthetic gloves on her skin. Remy was standing some way behind her – she did not know how far. It had been two days already, and she’d hardly even spoken to him. She had been afraid that every little word they might say would inevitably lead back to the intimacies she could no longer afford him.
“You’ve been avoidin’ me,” he stated quietly. His words flittered like ash about her.
One, two, three, four… Chuck says I’ve gotta trust myself, but how can I trust myself when I’m not even sure if the memories I have are all lies…?
“Why’ve you been avoidin’ me, Rogue?”
…Warren says I’m fine, but look at me, I’m not even myself, and this body, and this face, they’re so strange, so foreign…I mean, am I even me at all…? she thinks.
“Chere?”
Touch them…
She pressed her forehead against the window, and suddenly she felt the softness of his voice. Like rain dispersing the alien voices were displaced. Instead he was inside her head, layer upon layer of warmth and kindness and love and concern, and she whimpered at the overwhelming pungency of it, caught up as she was in every nuance of what he felt for her. With an effort she pushed him out of her. Why did he have to be so understanding? It was his tenderness she feared, not his anger. And now she knew, she knew the depth of his emotions – she knew it without even having to have him in her mind…
It was always, unfailingly this way. They were able to read one another’s emotions like some invisible code. Over the years it had become easier to reach out and catch the shapes and colours of their words with the tactile precision of antennae. They no longer even needed to look at one another.
This was why she feared. She feared because, from some indefinite position where he was standing, she could feel the shape of his stance as he stood there like a bare hand gently climbing up her spine, silent, lustful. And she feared because, from her place at the windowsill, the same thing was radiating from the arc of her back like the soft tap-tapping of morse-code.
Invariably he read her, and that was why he moved forwards, and his arms went around her, and she exhaled sharply at the warmth of his embrace. Helpless, she knelt before all her old desires, defenses crumbled. What pulsed through him now pulsed through her.
“No,” she whispered. “Remy, we can’t. We can’t make it work like this.”
“It can’t change what we’re feelin’ inside, chere,” he answered, and she felt his breath on her ear. She trembled and felt it. The trembling was her own weakness in the face of her passions.
“It can’t work,” she repeated urgently. “We should quit now, before ah do somethin’ terrible…before ah hurt you…”
“I don’t care,” he said. “And you shouldn’t either.”
The intensity of that space between them now closed, she felt the tangibility of his ache pressed against her, encroaching into her mind like the softest of tentacles. Raising her head she saw the glint of his eyes in the window’s reflection. Red upon black upon indigo upon black…
Turning, she slid her arms about his waist, and the rush that followed was desperate and unmistakable.
To kiss, to love, to touch.
One, two, three, four…
Except none of these things were for her anymore.
*
(8:49 p.m.)
Ever afterwards Rogue would remember this.
The memory of sinuous caresses on tremulous flesh, of light fingers meandering through the soft seams of her body with the subtlety of some thin, white knife scoring through her skin, opening, opening…
But now each touch he gives her is a dulled blade, ramming into her with equal pain and pleasure; it is the masochistic delight of cold steel between ribs that she feels, not the ecstasy of the teasing pinprick, so artful, so precise. He presses himself against her, and she buries her face against his chest. Warmth radiates from beneath his shirt like blood spreading from a wound across taut fabric. She imagines she tastes the sweat on his skin, the rawness of his body on her tongue; he is moist beneath soft material, she can smell it. She can scent him more than she can feel the inelegance of his caress. She can scent his arousal as he rubs one trousered thigh ever so slightly against her own, and her jeans rasp against her hot skin. She moans; it is a sound of dissatisfaction. But now, hopelessly separated by reams of cloth, it is easy for him to misunderstand her.
He cups her breast; her body throbs with the dullness of some old wound. Fingers on white cotton exacerbate every inch of the bittersweet agony she hears carousing through her. Hears, like a quivering hum; traversing a tight wire downward to lodge itself firmly in her thrumming center. Merciless, blissful torture…reaching out with hips to the place they need to be…recollecting, unfolding.
She raises her head, looks up at him whose eyes are dim and far-away. It is a look she recognizes. His tongue snakes out and wets his bottom lip. He knows – what once was masterful is now imperfect. One hand pushes her to him with brutal desperation. The other rests upon the dip in her clavicle, hovering over the hem of her blouse, woefully, fruitlessly licentious. He leans forward, wanting to taste her; his breath trembles on her mouth. She draws in every breath he takes with unbridled greed. His lips are warm, so warm over a space of millimetres…
What she remembers though, is reaching out with one hand to brush his cheek, both to welcome and repel that everlasting never-kiss. She knows every line and contour of his face, the way it should feel on her feverish skin.
But what she touches now is the cool inside of her glove.
Like a rusted blade her fingers connect; this time he feels it as she does. There is no longer any delicacy in their pretended lovemaking. Defeated, he reaches downward, obeying the obtuse summons to complete the drumming equation, for her if not for him. Instead she pushes him away.
No more blades are drawn.
With one gloved hand she wipes at her eyes.
What she imagines is blood is only her tears.
*
(8:55 p.m.)
“Chere, don’t cry.”
There was anguish in his voice, unintended as Rogue had broken their embrace and suddenly turned away, tears welling in her eyes. There was anguish because of her pain; anguish because of his own. He did not know why she had suddenly backed off. All he knew for certain was that he had felt whatever the reason was. He had felt it as though it had reached out and slapped him in the face.
“Chere,” he began again, desperation entering into his voice. “Please don’t cry…”
It was an empty request. She was already crying, her fists balled at her sides, her arms as stiff as bamboo poles.
“Ah, ah, ah can’t touch you,” she stammered. Her body shuddered like a willow in the breeze.
“It don’t matter, Rogue,” he pleaded with her. “It don’t change de way we feel inside…”
It pained him to see her distress, almost to the point that he wanted to weep too. With trembling hands he took her shoulders and pulled her round to face him. Such a simple thing to wipe the tears from her face, yet he couldn’t do it.
“It matters,” she cried; her head shook numbly. “It matters ‘cos it hurts, Remy. It hurts when you touch me. An’ it hurts when ah touch you. We’re killin’ each other, Remy. Killin’ each other, instead of lovin’ one another.” She raised her face, her eyes suddenly wide with horror. “What’ve ah done, Remy? What’ve ah done?”
The words struck a glancing blow to both. She was begging for an answer he could not give. That she should ask him seemed helplessly vile and selfish.
“No, Rogue,” he began quietly, collectedly as though sucked of all warmth. “Don’t say this is a mistake. Not after everythin’ we’ve sacrificed.”
She turned her head, ever so slightly. Her mouth crumpled as she glanced at the bed with a pained intensity in her eyes. He sensed the look as though he himself had been right under that gaze. A coldness inched over him, spreading like ice from the feet up.
“No, Rogue,” he echoed.
“Ah can’t give you what you want.”
“I only want t’ be wit’ you.”
“No. No, you say that now, but it won’t work, Remy. We can’t. We can’t make this work right now. Not when ah’m like this. It’ll kill us. We’ve gotten too close, far too close…”
“Rogue,” he answered patiently, “Sage says she can help you control your powers, an’ until dat time, I can wait for you, chere.” She made no reply, and he took her hands, holding on as if it was the only way to keep her. “Dear God, Rogue, please don’t push me away again.”
“You’ve got to let me, for your sake Remy, not for mine.” She shook her head. “Ah know you. You say all this now, but then you’ll get frustrated, an’ angry, an’ you won’t want t’ be with me anymore.”
He stepped back as if stunned. Of all the things she could have said and done, nothing could have wounded him more. This wasn’t simply a slap in the face. This was knife straight to the heart. He dropped her hands. Was that truly what she thought of him?
“It’s best if we’re apart,” she replied, rubbing her pale, tearstained cheeks. “At least until ah get control of mah powers. Ah can’t face it if you start resentin’ me for what ah can’t give you, Remy. Ah just can’t.”
“Rogue,” he replied quietly. “Dis is a mistake. If you’re t’inkin’ dat I’d want to be wit’ someone else just ‘cos I can’t touch you…?”
She made no reply, but the look on his face confirmed his fears. And suddenly he was furious, furious because he knew her mind was made up, because after everything she should have known him better than that, and because the words she had spoken were only half-truths.
“You’re really serious, aren’t you?” he said, gritting his teeth hard and trying to contain his sudden anger. “D’ you really t’ink dat of me, Rogue? Dat I’d do dat t’ you when you’re goin’ t’rough dis? You must have a pretty low opinion of me, chere. You must have a pretty low opinion of us.”
It was not hard for her to feel that tone in his voice, at once so far-away and yet so familiar. To hear it again caused her to blanch in sudden fear.
“That’s not how ah meant it, Remy…”
“No, Rogue,” he cut her off, spreading his hands in exasperation. “You’re goin’ through a hard time, an’ if you want us t’ be apart for a while, I can understand dat. But after all de promises we made, after I agreed t’ come back here an’…”
“What? Give up your freedom?” she suddenly interjected coldly, her own anger flaring. “If it bothered you so much then why’re you complainin’ now? Ah’m offerin’ it right back t’ you on a platter!”
“Don’t you dare twist my words, Rogue,” he hissed at her. “Whatever I did in de past ain’t de issue now. We made a…”
“Deal?” she finished for him. “Ah get t’ be with you, if ah leave you alone ‘bout the Diaries? Is that how relationships are made with you, Remy?”
“No, no deals, Rogue. We made a promise. An’ you know that wasn’t how it was…”
“No?” She turned her head away bitterly. “You came back here with me because you wanted to, because ah could finally give you everythin’ you wanted. But all the time ah was in your arms you never believed me, Remy. You never did! Ah know you didn’t. It was just convenient for you t’ play along. An’ now this is real Remy, it’s so real it’s playin’ round in mah head 24-7 an’ ah can’t get rid of it…” Touch them… She looked up at him, shaking her head, wet eyes glinting like stone. “How can you love me if you don’t believe me?”
“An’ how can you love me if you don’t trust me enough to stay wit’ you, chere?” he added quietly. “I tell you what I believe, Rogue. Much as I don’ like it, I believe dose dreams have a meanin’. But what dey mean don’t affect us. An’ even if dey did, I don’t particularly care. Dis cajun leads his own life. He loves who he loves regardless. He loves you, Rogue, whatever dose hocus-pocus books say. An’ right now, he ain’t de one breakin’ his promise. You are, Rogue. An’ if it’s your ‘sixth sense’ tellin’ you dat you should do dis, den no, I don’t believe in it, I don’t believe in it at all.”
He turned to the door, but she offered no resistance. It was only when he was halfway over the threshold that she spoke.
“Ah can’t help what ah’m seein’, Remy,” she told him quietly.
He half turned.
“Rogue, you ever t’ink dat mebbe dose premonitions aren’t tellin’ you de way t’ings should be, but de way t’ings shouldn’t be? Be careful what you read into dem, chere. Whatever kind of a future Irene’s been feedin’ you, it may not be de right one. If you are one of de Seven, mebbe dat’s your job, chere. To decide which future’s right, an’ which one’s wrong. Which means, Rogue, dat you’ve still got a choice. An’ I’m beggin’ you now – don’t go makin’ de wrong one.”
*