Saya
The Man I Love
1968, New York City
As I made the long trek up to Crystal's apartment, I began to think in a melancholy way. The smell of Crystal's Chanel no.5 and French bath salts drifting down the staircase made me remember France. Dear France. Dear his lovely hands, the pale pink nails a slight blush as his fingertips touched my face in love. Then the tears came as I remembered as his same nails, blood red, scratched down my same cheek. But on to blinking them away as I reached the final landing and walked down the long, dimly lit bottle green hall with peeling paint. My special love. The only man I will ever love. No matter his faults, no matter anything of that, I will always love him. Even if he did disappear into the night, into the darkness like an enveloping shadow of pain, leaving me all alone in despair and desperate questions unanswered, even then I will always love him. Even though I had given up my search long ago. He still lives. He is still in my heart, right here, beating.
Standing outside the old door, I steadied myself and breathed deeply once. The old door reminded me of the old door in our old house. How he would make me wait outside first before entering. But that is all past now. It is all gone now. Finally steady enough, I knocked politely on the green painted oak.
The door whipped open suddenly as a beaming Crystal received me at last for our weekly card tournament. Our other two friends were already there, smoking something which I dared not ask about. "Say-ah!" Crystal beamed like sunshine, mispronouncing my name as always, but as always I forgave her without saying anything. The American accent can be taxing on my ears sometimes, but I have learned to forgive it. They are not meaning to be harsh. They just don't know any better, so it is best to not let it bother me anymore. Crystal gave me a big hug and lead me to the card table set up in the small living room with her hand on my back in a friendly way.
Immediately upon seeing me, Clark stood up from his seat and slammed his two hands square on the table in a huff. "Saya!" he said in a blur of rage, "they arrested Bettie!" Seated next to him, Rosie started laughing. "What?!" he yelled in a desperate voice, "what could be so funny about them arresting my Bettie?"
Rosie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and breathed in deeply before grinning at him. "That queen. Coming up here from Alabama thinking we're the freedom at the top of the world! Haha! She thinks she can march right into any placed dressed like that? She puts on her ruby red lipstick and her matching high heels and walks, sashay sashay, any place. She needed to learn she can't do that, Clark. They're not gonna hurt her. One night in jail with the other queens. She'll have a good time, and you'll hear plenty of fun stories in the morning. Take her out for french toast or something, hahaha!" she laughed.
"Clark," Crystal sighed, smiling gently as she put down a plate of crackers and cheese dip on the middle of the table before us, "being arrested for the first time is practically a right of passage in our circle. She'll be fine." She rubbed him on the back and began shuffling cards as she settled down into her seat.
"That woman of your's," Rosie continued, sweeping her cards towards her and picking them up, "I will never understand how you could fall in love with such an airhead. Is it because she's blonde? Do you like the blondes?"
"No," Clark snapped, still defensive, "do you really want to know? Do you actually care?" He sounded wounded.
"Yeah, Clark, of course I care. I'm still your friend. I'm just poking fun at you. Tell me why you love Bettie," Rosie said, a gentler look on her dark face.
"Fine," Clark sighed, pushing his thickly framed glasses more up on his nose. He got a drifty look in his too light blue eyes. "She's so kind, you know? She's not rough like the people here. I guess perhaps that's from where she grew up. She was raised differently, different manners. She's got that Southern thing, pulling chairs out for people, placing a napkin on her lap before eating. She still says Grace before every meal, you know. You wouldn't think someone in her position would, but she's still a lamb in God's eyes. She tells me every day. Books are everywhere at her place, she loves reading. When she was little, she wanted to be a teacher, teaching the children. But she had to give it up. She said being true to herself is more important. She is definitely," Clark leaned in closer to Rosie, "she is definitely, definitely not an airhead."
Rosie smiled warmly to him. "Wow, I would never guess." She took a cracker and dipped it into the cheese dish in the middle of the plate and brought it to her mouth.
"Yeah?" Clark said, still a little snippy, "what about your June? What made you fall in love with her?"
Rosie grinned and leaned back in her chair. Crystal rolled her eyes at me and I smiled back.
"My Juney?" Rosie put her hands behind her head in a stretching movement, still grinning, her button down collared shirt tightening around her ample chest, "it was love at first sight. It was before I met you. I went out to the Stonewall one Saturday night. It was a hot, sticky August night. I was expecting to find beer, not some testy woman in the back sitting by herself. Her fire, man. Just her fire. And her boldness. Sitting among the queens, just laughing and laughing. She drew me in instantly. That long brown hair, her long lashes, those breasts!" Rosie started laughing loud as Clark's eyes went wide with the last mention. Rosie quieted, suddenly serious. She rested her hands on the table. "But you know the rest. When she got the cancer. You didn't know this, but...she had to go back to Jackson. Her parents wouldn't pay for her medical bills if she stayed here. I haven't heard from her in two months."
Clark's face fell. Crystal put a hand over her mouth to stay away the tears. So that's what happened to June.
Crystal reached across the table. "We'll get her back. You know we'll get her back. We'll pay for her bills, we--"
Rosie shook her head. "She's better off there. She needs that medical care. Her parents can keep her alive, that's what matters. What's love when you're dead?"
My heart twinged at the last sentence. What's love when you're dead? My brain flooded with thoughts about Beau. Hearing them talking about their lovers caused me think about him so much. Spiraling and spiraling in my head. His touch, his face, his everything. I made my face a mask as to not reveal my feelings. But then...
"Enough about me!" Rosie said, suddenly all a-grin again, though I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes. "Saya, tell us about your lover! We know you've got someone, you keep refusing the dates we set you up on! Who's your secret boy toy? Come on!"
Clark's face whipped to me. "You're gay?! Why didn't you tell me?!"
Rosie slapped him on the shoulder. "Of course he's gay, why else would he like to go to the Stonewall, geez Louise, Clark!"
Clark pursed his lips in hurt, "there's straight men at the Stonewall sometimes, but he is a regular so...I'm so stupid."
Crystal was laughing at their exchange next to me, but my brain was secretly ablaze. What could I possibly tell them? Yes, I had been purposely cancelling the dates Rosie and Crystal had set me up on at the last minute every time. Purposely, I had been avoiding saying anything about my love life. But like gossiping teenagers, they always poked at me asking.
I took a deep, calming breath. They looked at me with wonder in their eyes. Crystal gave me an incredulous look, as if to say, 'finally?'. I picked up my beer and took a big swig. Crystal knew this cue. "Aww, honey, you don't have to tell..." she began.
I just shook my head. "I've got to," I sighed, closing my eyes and breathing deeply again. "The truth is, he's been on my mind constantly. Too often these days." I opened my eyes. My friends were looked at me, wide-eyed. Rosie dropped her cards on the table and didn't even notice in the shock that I had told something so secret. That their quiet, so foreign Asian friend, too often a mystery, had revealed something so huge about himself finally.
I took another deep breath. "I'll tell you about him. But you must not breathe a word of this to anyone else. Please."
Clark nodded in vigor, "of course. Of course. Just please go on." Rosie shushed him, then all attention was on me. I suddenly felt fearful, but with another breath, relaxed enough. I put my hands on the table, folded. I leaned in towards my hands a little bit, shrinking despite wanting to look bold and brave like Rosie.
I took another calming deep breath, and finally said: "The man I love...the man I love..."
I felt Crystal's large but slender hand on the small space between my shoulders in comfort. They could all tell from the mood change in the room that this would not be a happy story. Humans are more perceptive than we give them credit for.
1730's, France
Splish, splosh
A strange noise came from the garden. It was just starting to rain, yet it did not sound like the rain in the fountain.
Splash, splish, SPLISH
Louder. What in the world? I put down my book, and made my way downstairs, cautiously. It sounded almost like...
SPLASH, SPLASH
...Swimming?
My heart began to race. My feet quickened in their pace. My soul was a tremor in caution. Was it my Beau? Was my Beau back? I had not seen him for several months, and before that, he had been distant. Unnaturally quiet. Preoccupied. His face had been an unnatural blush, red cheeks flushed as if in fever, all the time. He would take my wrist hard when the back of my hand touched his hot cheek, and he would stare at me. Staring at me like he didn't even know me. Squeezing my wrist until the very bones could crack and I whimpered his name. It scared me like no other. Those eyes. Those stranger's eyes.
More liquid sounds met my ears as I entered the large viewing room. My shoes clip clopped on the soft marble, quick sounds a beat with the rain's music. And those strange heavy liquid sounds, they did not belong in this symphony of familiarity.
Just as I entered the view of the doors, my eyes betrayed me and a storm of fears flew up from my toes to my head and my entire body went into an electric shock, every fiber of my skin pinched out in a static fear. I shall never forget the feeling.
The garden was no more. Where the garden sloped down on the hill, to the marble walls beyond, it was all a deep black pool of strange liquid. Unmoving liquid, covered halfway to the wall beyond, brought to a lip at where the hill began.
Deeply afraid, I stared at it, my eyes racing at every bit of it, examining desperately, my heart racing. What was it? Where had it come from? Was it her, the one called Mother, whom I had seen so many years ago in my own family's garden? Was this her, in a liquid form, come to take me away? My body froze, my worst fears realized. She had come for me.
A tiny, tiny sound of liquid movement drew my eyes to the very middle where the fountain had been but was no more. Then slowly, very slowly, my new worst nightmare emerged from the shore of that black pool.
Round, the same color as the pool, rose slightly a form, and rising as swiftly as an ocean wave moves, a figure seemed to grow out of the liquid. Rising as if a rope were tied around his neck, chin slightly tilted towards the sky, hair black, lips black, skin coloring as if the very blood in his veins ran black, the form of a stranger emerged. The liquid dripped from his fingertips, from his hair and down his body. Wrapped about him was a luxurious cloth, giving him an almost regal bearing but grotesque.
By the curse of the storm starting to rage above, suddenly everything was bathed in a light for a split second. But a split second was all I needed to realize. To scream.
It was my Beau. Bathed in deep blood red, his hair red, his eyes red, his fingernails, his lips, everything blushed that deep red, covered in it as if it clung to him greedily, as if he were its royal Emperor. But it was not my Beau. It was not my Beau!
He smiled at me. My heart stopped in slow motion. He fell backward into the pool of blood as if a fish, and swam as if his legs were a tail swaddled in the cloth. His head dipped below the surface, then his whole body disappeared from my sight.
I dropped to my knees, breathing too hard, but I could not control it. I couldn't control anything anymore. What was this nightmare vision before me? My mind raced in a flurry of fear and despair. Who was this man? What had he done to my Beau, and where was my Beau? My sweet, sweet Beau?
I began to cry slowly, covering my face in my hands. And then a thought struck me.
The blood. Where had the blood...?!
I stood up fiercely. A shining ray of light breathed through my very soul, feeling as if prisming through my very skin. How many?! It screamed. How many?!
Like a creature all its own, the words exploded from my mouth as I felt the wings explode from my back and spread out about the whole room, their light casting a violent glow about me and lighting up the pool once more, that sickening red.
"How many?!" I screamed. "How many did you kill?! How many are dead, how many are in that pool?! Where are their bodies?!"
The liquid sound again, a small rush at the surface, and all I saw were his lips, the very tip of his face.
"Thousands~," he sang in a breath of ecstacy, "thouuusands~." Then a light giggle, and he drew under the liquid once more, buried in the cast of his sinful murder.
I could take no more of this. All there were was tears. I cried for them all. And for him. My sweet Beau. He was my sweet Beau no longer. He was just a stranger. There was no beauty in him at all.
Suddenly, I was back in Crystal's apartment. I had covered my face in my hands, and I was sobbing deeply, quietly. All three of them were staring at me with horror stricken faces.
"Your face! Say-ah, you're bleeding!" Crystal cried, trying to pry my hands away.
"No...no...I ca- I can't..." I choked, sobbing. My thoughts shocked back to reality. If they saw my tears! These red unnatural tears! My heart sent such a fear throughout my body that I stopped crying. Even if it was about him.
Crystal took my hand away as I relaxed quickly to not cause more alarm. She wiped my hand with a dish towel hurriedly, fretting worriedly.
"Are you okay? What happened? You were talking, then you just covered your face and all this blood...are you sick?" Rosie asked, a look of intense concern on her face. My breath caught silently, at the thought of her dear June. I couldn't let her think I was sick, too, it would be too much.
"Its a nosebleed," I said, my voice grating in the sadness, "I felt a nosebleed coming, caused by the dry air. From the Summer night."
"It went all over your face," Crystal said in sort of a hush, now wiping my cheeks, the damp cloth wiping gently, tracing my cheekbones carefully with such tenderness. My heart softened in this kind gesture. A small bubble of the sadness erupted up one more time, and a sob got caught in my throat.
"Maybe..." Clark said quietly, "maybe...thinking about the man you love caused your blood pressure to go up."
This caused me to smile a little bit in the human naivete. A kind smile.
"I think," Crystal said, helping me up from my sitting position, "that you should stay the night here. Who knows if you'd fall down from the blood loss when walking home? Its getting late anyway. Those two have day jobs." She looked at them desperately.
Rosie looked at the clock on the wall and cleared her throat and turned towards the hallway. Clark stood up, too, and they made their way to the entrance of the apartment.
"We hope you feel better, Saya," Rosie said, still a very concerned sound to her voice, a brave voice to all others, but to me one just full of worry.
"Take care, really," Clark said with an expression of caring.
We waved to them, and they left.
Hearing their footsteps disappearing down the hall, Crystal led me to the bathroom. She turned on the old faucet on the sink. The liquid sound, as the water filled, reminded me of rain in the old fountain.
"Tell me, now," Crystal said, her wise face reflected in the mirror, "I was close enough to hear you crying."
I blushed slightly. So perceptive she was.
"Tell me about the man you love," she whispered, gently wiping my face with a newly wet towel.
I looked down at the swirling water in the sink, my blood swirling down the drain with it. A metaphor for my life. The pureness of the normalcy stained in a blood, a death of familiar spiraling out of control down the drain of evil. My heart caught in a vice and I could look no more. My eyes found our faces in the mirror above the sink. My face stained with my awful demon blood still, her innocent human eyes staring at me wide, their incomprehension absolute.
I breathed in with a soothing way, but it could not calm my overwhelming misery. Nothing ever could.
Then, seeing no other terms, I began my story slowly in the barest, smallest, despairing whisper, in the only way a human could ever understand:
"The man I love," I said, grieving, "...is a monster..."