A Lonesome Night

     He froze when she walked in. It was amazing, that all-encompassing icy feeling that swept through his entire body. Hell, he hadn’t felt that in nearly two years. More specifically, since that last bleak May Day he’d spent in this two-horse city. He clenched his teeth on the rim of his beer mug, just knowing what was going to follow that bone-deep chill.

     Ah,  yes. The lust.

     Desire as warm as humid summer air slid througgh him, melting that first frost and leaving him freshly made. A bright spring leaf, wavering in a cool breeze… Oh, god damn it. He always fell into these fanciful metaphors when he saw her. Scowling, he turned to face the shelves of liquor behind the bar.

     "…Stephen?"

     Dulcet tones of late summer dawn… An angel whispering in his ear suddenly lost its’ voice when she spoke his name. No one ever spoke his name the way she did. His neck tightened involuntarily, but he turned, casting wary grey eyes over his back.

     She was disgustingly radiant. Hair of rich chocolate lay in loose waves on her shoulders, framing her pert face. Dark blue eyes sparkled with delight (at seeing him, no doubt) and her red lips curled into a winning smile. "Stephen! It’s so good to see you!" She’d never been very reserved, and now she nearly knocked him over with an enthusiastic hug. He found himself hastily putting his beer down and squeezing her tightly. (Same as always…) Her voice burbled in his ear, too close for comfort. "Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in ages!" She drew back, holding his upper arms loosely.

     "I’ve been…around, Chrissie," he said, trying to ignore the huge diamond sparkling on his right bicep. "I’m surprised you’re down here. Prince Charming never struck me as the slumming type."

     She laughed, as he’d known she would, and pushed at his chest. "Oh, stop calling him that. He’s definately not a prince."

     "Only a third rate baron then?" He watched her wrinkle her nose and toss her hair with a sharp pang of nostalgia.

     "You tease," she said, giving him a stern look, ruined by the uplifting corners of her mouth. "Are you going to buy a lady a drink?"

     "No, but if you want a beer, I’ll buy you one."

     She laughed, smacking him sharply on the arm. Her eyes, fascinatingly shaped with their Asian tilt, narrowed in a friendly way as she tapped her nails on the bar. "You’re still drinking domestic, of course."

     "Always." He mumbled an order for a Dos Equis.

     She smiled, leaning against the bar. "Still remember what I like, too?"

     Stephen shrugged, tossing a crumpled bill onto the bar. "Some things you don’t forget," he said, looking her over with a shrug. His mind finished the sentence for him: some things you can’t forget.

     Chrissie took the ice-crusted bottle and tipped it to her lips. He wasn’t the only man gazing at her, but with her silky hair and poise, he never had been alone in his admiration. A fact which brought bitter humor to his lips as he drained his mug of Grain Belt. She licked her lips and beamed at him. "Get another and let’s sit down. I haven’t seen you in way too long."

     Settled in the back booth of a dive which had become his style and never been hers, they fiddled with their bottles and avoided eye contact for a while. Chrissie apparently felt shy enough to laugh and wave her hand dismissively when he finally brought the subject around to the huge diamond on her hand.

     "You k now Gerald. I told him it was too ostentatious, but he never listens to me." She shook her hair back and laughed again.

     "Why wear it then?" He’d nearly peeled the label off of his bottle, and now flipped the cap over his fingers dextrously.

     "Well, I couldn’t just leave it," she retorted, a bit of the fire he remembered with sharp clairity showing in her eyes.

     "You did it with mine," Stephen said, knowing even as he did so that it was opening up a massive can of worms. Her eyes sparked blue lightning, and he heard a faint crack when her beer bottle met the table.

     "And you know damn well why! All we did was fight! Over everything! My clothes, your music, our friends, our lifestyles. I got sick of it! So did you!"

     "No, you said I did. I was trying to work it out. I wanted us to work, Chrissie. You just wanted out. With Gerald in the

wings, waiting for you… Who would’ve blamed you?"

     "You did," she said, suddenly quiet. Tears pricked at her eyes. "And I wanted you, too. It just wasn’t working for us, Stephen. We both knew… We both know it wasn’t going to go further. We did well taking it as long as we did."

     "Three years," he murmured quietly.

     "Yeah. A very long three years. We’re both happy  now." Chrissie avoided his eyes intently.

     "…well, that’s good to know."

     "What do you want me to do?" She cried out with sudden desparation. "Yes! I love you! I’ll always love you! But… I can’t be with you. You know that. It didn’t work. Now we both know that it can’t work."

     "So why’d you come here?" He had to challenge her, his eyes snapping. "You knew I’d be here. It’s nearly Christmas. You knew."

     "…I miss you." She looked at him despairingly, and he had to sigh, lowering his head over his beer.

     "I know. It doesn’t make this hurt less. But I know."

     "I wish I could stop you from hurting," she said, touching the back of his hand. "But… I’m happy now. I can’t go back to the way it was.  You know that."

     Stephen looked at her, a sigh heavy in his throat, gazed at her luminescent eyes, her pale skin, and nodded. "I know."

     She fiddled with a heavy curl of her hair, saw him watching her hand, and turned the enormous diamond towards her palm. The stone undoubtably dug into her palm when she closed her hand, but Chrissie didn’t flinch. "I want you to be happy. Can’t you be happy, Stephen? What about…ooo…what’s-her-name? Tia? Tamara? Tiana? Tiffany?"

     "Christina."

     "…oh, Tina. I must have gotten it mixed up. What about her?" Chrissie, still looking abashed at forgetting a name so eerily similar to her own, tried to brighten, a smile widening. "Last I heard, you two were really hitting it off."

     Stephen fought the instinctive urge to lie: to cover the truth and let Chrissie skip away with a clear conscience. "She moved away. Two months ago."

     The smile slipped off of her lips and broke on the table. "Oh."

     "Apparently, she couldn’t live with me and a torch." He gave a humorless smile. "You can’t douse it, even with two nights of continual shrieking and crying."

     "…oh, Stephen…" Chrissie sighed, evidently at a loss. "It’s been nearly four years. Can’t you let this go?"

     "Can’t you?" He’d thought of ‘letting go’ a thousand times. If only it was so easy… "You came here. Wearing his godawful ring," and here he looked pointedly at her wrist,"and the charm bracelet that I got you. You come here, like it was an accident. Why hasn’t he called yet?" Stephen reached out and tapped the cell phone resting on the table. "What’d you tell him to make him not care where you went?"

     Chrissie looked down, fiddling with her beer bottle. "…said I was with Tamara."

     "See? You lie to your fiance to come down here and see me. Good God, Chrissie! You tell me to let go, and you pull this?"

     She took one shuddering breath, then another. Stephen tried to ignore the rosy tears spattering the table, but each one was a drop of acid on his wildly lacerated heart. With the resigned murmur of the condemned, Stephen slid out of his seat and next to her. Chrissie clutched at his arms and began to cry in earnest.

     It hurt. God, it hurt. Holding her again, feeling the clutch of her hands, even the painful scrape of that diamond ring against his back… The memories came in a sharply edged flood, bringing back every day, every second of their time, so long ago. She was right. It was over, had been for quite a while, and they both knew it. But there waws something deeper than just love holding them in bondage to each other. Stephen didn’t understand it, and he knew Chrissie sure as hell didn’t. It just was.

     "…I don’t know how I could’ve gone so long without seeing you," she sobbed, the diamond digging a small hole in his back as she struggled to get closer. "If you only knew how much I’d missed you, Stephen! Don’t leave me again. Please? Stay with me tonight? I know you love to sleep while you’re holding me. You always said you couldn’t sleep without your little bear." She turned tear-wet, sea-blue eyes to him, and the old hurt tore open all over again. It wasn’t years ago, it was then, that achingly bad night which still had raw edges. Without thinking, he kissed her fiercely, crushing her t

o him as hard as he could. Chrissie didn’t struggle, but tore a gash in his neck with the diamond as she buried her hands in his hair.

     It was so good to do this, to squeeze his Chrissie and let the taste of her lips soothe the neverending, but eternally throbbing, pain of loss. Stephen lost himself in the nepenthe, the easing of hurt, and then with a single motion of her mouth, sanity, and pain, crashed back into him.

     "No!" Stephen nearly yelped as he thrust her to arms’ length. Blood showed red on her palm, dulling the diamond’s glitter. Both of their eyes were drawn to it, and Chrissie let out another quiet sob.

     "I just can’t stop hurting you, can I?" She fumbled for a napkin as Stephen rose slowly.

     "…I…need to go," he said, his voice heavy, his hands feeling stiff and awkward at his sides. She tried to meet his eyes, but Stephen turned away. Chrissie, sensing defeat of a sort, nodded once.

     "…take care," she whispered, turning the diamond on her left hand slowly.

     "Chrissie, if you…" Stephen fumbled for words, tried to find what…how to say it… "If you hadn’t met Gerald… Well, you… You changed after him."

     She nodded, blotting her tears on a crumpled napkin, examining the reddish stain solemnly. "I know. I… I think about that, too." Chrissie gave him a weak, watery smile. "Oh well, I guess. I can’t- I can’t stop being what I am."

     He nodded slowly, finding a pathetic excuse for an answering smile tugging at his lips. "I still love you."

     She wiped at her eyes and took a long breath. "It means more than you know to hear that."

     He nodded again and walked through that smoky dive. She watched him go, one hand resting on her beer. The one glance they exchanged before the door slid shut was tangible, waving the thick cigarette smoke aside. Stephen nodded. Chrissie smiled. The door shut.

     Stephen paused in the alley, licking the bloody spots off of his lower lip. With an inaudible huff, he padded down the sidewalk, his black tail waving. The wolf paused, glancing over his shoulder just once, merely in time to watch the brunette step outside. She smiled, the streetlight glinting off of her fangs. The wolf’s grey eyes gleamed, and he loped away along Brandenburg’s dark streets, leaving his aching heart at the feet of his undead love.