Such Tales as Fairies Tell: Kirk

Jordy’s standing there.  Feet rooted.  He looks at a stranger, but he knows what he’s looking at.  This man is big, he’s wide on the shoulders and his arms are tree trunks, his hair is a little bit shaggy, a metallic mid-brown, and his eyes are knives.  The aura of a majestic stag burns all around him.

Jordy knows.

He tries to think of something he can say or do.  The moment congeals around him.  The unreality of everything.

And then the guy charges him.  There’s only really a split second before it happens.  And then it’s all in double-speed.  He feels the impact almost before he sees the guy move.  There’s no soft bits, and he goes down hard.  The guy grabs his elbow and turns him over onto his back, delivering a punch to his face before he can properly register what’s happening.

Jordy has a half second to bring his arms up in front of his face before the next blow lands.  The guy’s knelt over him raining blows with alternate fists.  His forearms are taking the worst of the damage.  He tries to fend him off, but there’s an amazing amount of force in his attacker.  Anita’s had the handful of seconds this has been happening to run over and start trying to drag the guy off him.  She has both hands around one his arms, fighting against a hurricane.

The man leaps to his feet.  He swirls on Anita, with his other fist raised.  And there’s a frozen moment when Jordy’s quite sure he’s going to hit her, and then he’ll have to leap in again and protect her.  He can’t win, but he’s scrambling to his feet.

“Enough!”  Anita yells.

This man stops.  He lowers his arm.

“It’s not his fault,” she says.

Which is sort of true, because he hadn’t known about the other man until about a minute ago.  Until two minutes ago there hadn’t even been a compromising moment.  All the same he has to say it: “Sorry.  Sorry, it was just… just what you saw.  That was it.” And what had he seen?

Anita says, “Kirk this is Jordy.  Jordy this is Kirk.”  She doesn’t look at either of them, and she doesn’t gesture.  They know which one is which.

Kirk glares at Jordy.

“Sorry, buddy.  I didn’t…”

“Now you do.”

“Okay.”

“So, you can bugger off now.”

He looks at Anita.

Kirk glares harder, heavier.  “Like I said…”

Anita nods.  She says softly: “We’ll talk.”

In a whisper: “Are you safe?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then,” though he’s not at all sure about anything.  How this meathead could be the embodiment of an elegant, magical creature.  What he’s doing here living in a third-floor apartment in an unspectacular part of town.  With Anita?  Boella?

“I’m fine.”  She promises.  “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll call.”

“Okay.”

#

“She’s got a boyfriend, now?”

“Kirk.”

“Oh, for-”

“Don’t.”

“Oh, wait: you haven’t fallen for her?”

Jordy doesn’t answer.

“Jordy…”

He shakes his head.  Simply not knowing.  He can’t put together words that explain what links him to Anita.  Love.  Friendship.  Infatuation.  They don’t sum it up.  He doesn’t know if he feels betrayed, or if betrayal doesn’t make sense in the context of whatever’s going on.  It’s too… just too…

Will says, “Oh, buddy.  You and I need to go out and get seriously wasted.”

#

The next morning’s hangover is like getting run over and over and over by a truck.  It beats down on him from a great height, while even the smallest sliver of light seems to want to kill him.  Or perhaps that’s the bruising.  His face has come out read and puffy, with a darkness of bruises just blossoming below it.  His arms are dappled with evidence of the assault.  Looking in the mirror is painful and horrifying.

Parts of last night are a blur.

But he said he’d call her and he does.

“Jordy.  I’m so sorry about everything.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is.  Can we meet?”

“What does Kirk think about that?”

“It’s not… it’s not… I mean it’s hard to explain.”

“You rescued him.”

“I suppose.  Yes.  But… can we meet?”

“Orange and Apple, on the corner.”

#

She’s there first, dressed in a sky-blue dress, her hair braided and twisted on top of her head.  There’s a glossiness about it, and quiet glow in her cheeks.  Who could imagine her to be just a normal woman?

He orders lattes and sits down.

“I owe you an explanation.”

“Not really.”  Until the kiss, it’d been none of his business.

But there had been that kiss.  She looks him in the eye.  “I shouldn’t have let you kiss me.  I know that.  Not with things unresolved like they are with Kirk.”

“You never mentioned him.”

“I know.”

“He lives with you?”

“No.  He showed up two days ago.  That’s the thing with me and Kirk.  I suppose you could call it on-again, off-again.  We’re not always together, but we’re never really apart either.  He’s has a few flings as well, and we’re not…” she’s hunting for a word.

“Official?”

“Exactly.”

“And he knows that?”

“Yes.”

“But.”  And he gestures at his own face.

“I’m so sorry about that,” she reaches hesitantly to touch his tender, swollen cheek.

“It’s okay.”

“Have you had it checked out?”

“It’s okay.”

“You’re mad, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fair enough.”  She reaches over the table and takes his hands.  There is a certain magic in her touch, a tingling of his skin on hers.  “I shouldn’t have let things go that far with us.  I mean there’s not us, exactly.  But I do like you.  But I’m not precisely free, am I?  I shouldn’t have acted as if I was.  It’s just… me and Kirk…”

“You rescued him.”  He can picture the rescue, the pitiful eyes of a wounded, dying creature.  It’s fragile fawn legs.  Struggling to stand on the marbled floor in that enchanted castle.

“He was in a bad way when we met,” she doesn’t seem to question his knowledge of what happened, “He needed someone.  I don’t know where he would have been headed if I hadn’t stepped in.  He has this destructive side-”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Sorry.  It won’t happen again.  But, what we did, that probably shouldn’t happen again either.”

The barest hint of a kiss. 

“Do you understand?”

No.  It feels like goodbye.  And that much would be intolerable.  He can live without another kiss, he can leave her body in some other man’s hands.  Okay.  But there’s a real something that he needs to hold onto, even if its only a casual friendship.  She’s become a part of him, she’s his missing piece, and it’s too much… it’d be too awful if she simply dropped out of his life.  He vows in his head that he will never let that happen – it feels both right and wrong – that he’ll keep this tether intact.  If nothing else she’s still his neighbour.  But what he says is: “He’s never hurt you, has he?”

“No.”

“Because he looked for a moment like he was going to.”

“No.  Honestly.”

“Okay.  You work things out.”  Do what you gotta do.  “But I will kick his ass if he hurts you.  I might bring a friend,” - right, Will? – “but I’ll do it.  I will.”

She says, after a few too many moments: “I know.”

#

And somehow, Jordy needs to go on with his life.  He needs to get up the next morning and go to work.  His current job is part time, at a gas station.  And the boss is not exactly thrilled to see his face.  “Jealous boyfriend,” he says, just to make matters worse.  Just because he can.  Just because it seems as if everything’s in freefall, and nothing matters.  Not what he says, or what he does, not even what he thinks.

Anita/Boella is still everywhere.  He finds himself thinking about both versions of her.  He walks along the street at lunchtime and there seem to be hints of her in every other face.  He stops outside an art shop and feels certain that’s her face that smiles back at him out of a portrait.  Behind that portrait there’s a painting that reminds him of the mural in his building.

On that topic: it’s not the only one.  There’s graffiti in a couple of places in town that bears the same resemblance.  Not looking like it exactly, but having some of that same essence, that aura.  A picture of hell that’s a picture of the ocean as well – without having to look like either.  A figure in white.  A swirling of spray-painted colours.  It doesn’t make sense.

He says to Will: “I should go back there.”

“Where?”

“The enclave.  The fairies.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

“This is all mixed up with them.  She’s theirs.”

“The only thing you should get from those freaks is your money back.”

“No.  I got a story.”

“It’s not having a happy ending.  Is it?”

“Some stories don’t.”

“Those ones suck, dude.”

#

He goes anyway.  Or he tries to go.  He knows exactly where the place is.  He knows the ordinary door.  He walks up to it and find no bouncer.  He reaches to turn the knob.  Nothing.  He thinks about trying to kick the door in –

- because, yeah, I know how to do that –

- but thinks better of it.  If they don’t want to be found, they won’t be.  He’s letting himself forget: the fairies aren’t of this world.  The come and go, but they’re not born of it.  Anita either.  She’s come – for now – along with her pet, Kirk, but she’ll go again.  If he’d been with her she would have left him.  Sooner or later.

This is better.

He tells himself that.

He walks a block to a bar he likes, orders a whiskey on the rocks, orders three more, four.  He finds a blond girl who reminds him of neither Anita or Boella, or even Theresa, and he dances with that girl until it’s pushing dawn.  He makes out with her in an alleyway, laughs with her, waits with her until her taxi arrives.  Knows he’ll never see her again.

#

Anita he sees.  He catches a glimpse of her in the hallway or on the street now and then.  She smiles softly, she waves.  There’s an urge to stop and talk to her, and he’s sure it’s reciprocal. He has to tell himself: not now. Not yet.

Things have to come to a head with Kirk.

#

And then she calls him.  “We spoke.  Me and Kirk.  We’re in agreement about it.  We both need to move on.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t think I get you at all.”

“It’s… history, between me and him.  It’s the past binding us.”

“Do you hear yourself?

“He’s gone, if you want to come over.”

#

Come over.  Does that mean…?

Does he want it to mean…?

He changes his clothes and brushes his hair.  For whatever it might mean.

And Anita, when he sees her, with her hair down, and weird lights playing through it.  When he sees that golden sheen to her skin. It feels like too much.  She’s unearthly in her gorgeousness.  More so than normal.  As if she has all these fey-spells playing across her skin like foundation.  A trick she does with her eyes…

….her sinuous, long limbs.  The grace of the arm that drapes over the couch.

“He’s really gone?”

“Yes.”

“For now.”

“I’m not sure.”

Jordy’s appetite for games dries up in his mouth.  “He played you, right?  He comes to you, the wounded animal, dragging himself across the hall, in front of everyone, begging for your help.  You heal him, and then he runs away.  You end up lost, you fall through the gaps and then there he is again.  Am I getting warm?”

She looks up at him, registering his tone.

He could be talking in metaphors.  Metaphors would still work.  He’s flirting with the whole truth, with just spilling her true origins out on the table and seeing what happens.  He wants to, and yet he’s afraid.  He’s petrified of what dropping the masks would actually mean for them.

He says: “Is he?  Using you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She reaches out for him, links his fingertips into hers and guides him next to her on the couch.  “I’m sorry about how all this played out. I really am.  I’m sorry about how complicated things are with Kirk.  I can’t even promise you that he’s out of my life.  In fact, I can tell you that he’s not.  There’ll always be that thing, that whatever it is.  But.  And here’s the thing:-”

He can feel his heart beating too hard.

“Here’s the thing: I feel something with you.  I like you.  I don’t know where we’re going, and I don’t want to have to put a label on it.  But I do want to see where it takes us. I do want there to be an us.  I’m not making sense…”

Look or leap?  Dive in.  Move forward in one swift, breath-held swoop; or shy away, run for the hills?  Jordy wraps his hands in hers, feeling the electricity, accepting it for whatever it is, for whatever she is.  “I’m the same. Let’s give this thing a go.”

A clock strikes midnight.

One world or the other.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work