How will your son become a man, how will your daughter know how to be loved by one?"
Her eyes were like onyx, and he wondered if he was meant to die before they all were. Quickly, the euphoria of her body against his, her eyes looking into his, was gone for the reality that he could die in such a way. "They’ll always seek out what was withheld from them, and everything sought will have its own void because they will lack the capability to see anything else,” she said and was, for a moment, a terrible, ugly thing. “Loving what is of your own creation is not a choice, it is a duty,” she said and he tried to breathe, tried to move her hands, looked at her face and found in its stone, reason to panic.
There was a still moment before her face softened into pity, then horror. He wondered if she had seen his panic and been repulsed. She let her hands down and reared back. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” and he tried to grab her, but before he could even regain his breath, she opened the door and ran off naked into the night. He watched her slim body go, her hair carried on the smoldering wind.
The next time they met, he invited her to his house. His wife was visiting family, and he’d done almost everything he could not do with another person in the house. Then, he jogged, then he delved into the damp crannies of the internet to see what had become of old girlfriends, then he flossed his teeth and pretended not to notice the increasingly manic look in the eyes of the intricately coiffed women and men on the news. I am going to die, he said into the mirror after brushing his teeth. He thought about his wife, wondered how it felt to be pregnant while the world went to dust. Did the child in her belly already feel stillborn? He liked being able to indulge in thoughts like this, without footsteps around the house to reinforce his guilt.
Raven Leilani | 19