21. UNMERCIFUL
MALACHI
The city passed by in a blur and she remained silent as she gazed out the window. The setting sun cast a golden hue that reflected on the glass towers around us and gleamed through the gaps in alleyways as if the sun was trying its best to infiltrate the city one more time before setting into the horizon.
“Esther,” I called out and she jumped slightly before looking over to me. “Where are you right now?”
“Here,” she said sitting up straighter and taking my hand as the car pulled to a stop. “I’m right here with you.”
Taking her hand, I kissed the back of it before I opened the door and stepped out in front of her building.
“You know I’ve never brought a boy home before. Grandpa would have lost it,” she laughed and pulled me towards the revolving doors.
“I’ve been here before, remember?” I reminded her, allowing her to drag me.
“That was different. You came uninvited.” She nodded to the security guard before taking me to the elevator.
“It’s not my fault every time you see me you fall into my arms—ouch!”
“That was only twice!” She held two fingers up for me to see.
“Twice in this lifetime,” I teased as we got into the elevator. “I have to say, you aren’t as light as I remember though.”
Her mouth dropped open and I could feel the oncoming firestorm. Yet I grinned happily as the silver doors closed, but not before I noticed the quick glance the security guard gave us before picking up the phone and dialing. I wasn’t sure why I’d noticed it, but my instincts told me…told me that something wasn’t right.
“And don’t even get me started on those damn corsets, they were invented by men just so they could feel us up once we fainted from the lack of oxygen—are you even listening to me? Malachi?”
“Huh?” I looked back at her. She stared directly back at me and eyed me carefully. “Sorry, you’re so beautiful everything goes in one ear and out the other.”
She tried to hold a straight face but snorted before she covered her mouth and laughed. “Oh, that was so cheesy!”
“That was a classic romantic line, thank you very much!” I smirked.
“Yeah from 1910,” she muttered, glancing up as we reached the floor of her apartment. But before she could walk out I stepped in front of her and came face to face with a woman who looked just like Esther, only twenty years older. She had short black hair and was dressed in a sleeveless, velvet jumpsuit. She flinched at the sight of me but stood straighter at the sight of Esther. Her jaw locked and her eyes hardened as she placed the straps of her red purse over her shoulder.
“Mom….” Esther’s voice drifted as she stared at the woman in front of us.
“Esther.” She took a deep breath. “I was just coming to see you—”
“Then why are you exiting my apartment?” Esther asked glancing over her shoulder at the door that hadn’t closed all the way.
However, her mother simply ignored her as her brown eyes locked on to me. “And who the hell are you? Your grandfather’s gone so you’re just bringing men over—?”
“What did you take?!” Esther snapped as she stepped in front of me and reached for her mother’s bag.
“DO NOT TOUCH ME!” She hollered as she tried to tug her purse away. But nothing was going to stop Esther in that moment. It was as if she were blinded by rage and she gripped and tugged so hard that the snap broke and the purse fell onto the carpet. And as it landed, it opened up and all of Alfred’s watches and a few pieces of jewelry fell out.
They both froze for a moment before Esther bit her lip. She nodded to me as she wiped her nose. “Malachi, call the police.”
“The police?” Her mother laughed as she stepped back and looked at me. “Go ahead white boy, call the police. Please. Go ahead, call the police and tell them what, sweetheart? That I took my stuff from my father’s home?!”
“IT’S NOT YOURS!” Esther screamed at her. “HE LEFT YOU WITH NOTHING! HE GAVE YOU NOTHING! BECAUSE YOU ARE NOTHING!”
“WHAT DOES THAT MAKE YOU THEN? HUH?! THE BIGGEST REGRET OF NOTHING! THE SCUM OF NOTHING—”
I saw it coming and grabbed her wrist before her palm hit the side of Esther’s face. Looking down on the woman, I brought her hand down to her side as I stepped between Esther and her mother. I bent down to pick up the watches and the jewelry before I put it back into her purse. Holding the purse out to her she stared at it for a moment before snatching it out of my hands.
“Forget it.” She sneered as she dumped everything back out onto the ground in front of Esther. “Happy now, Esther? Or do you want to see me in handcuffs too? Maybe out starving on the street—”
“If you need nothing else, here is the elevator,” I said as I pressed the button for her. Since we’d just come up, the elevators sprang open. She looked to me and I tried not to hate her for the pain she was inflicting. I tried to make her realize how unimportant she was, however, she just had to open her mouth again.
“Don’t think you’re the first man trying to fuck for what our families got. You—”
“GET OUT!” I hissed as I grabbed her by the arm and threw her into the elevator. “Do you think you’re the first woman who has ever suffered? Do you think that your pain gives you the right to give others pain? You are not and it does not. Know that everything you do comes back to you!”
“I’ll remember you!” She pointed at me before the doors closed. “Just watch.”
Grinding my teeth together, I waited until I was sure the elevators were going down before I turned back to Esther, who was kneeling as she quietly picked up her grandfather’s wristwatches, tie clips, cufflinks, and what I could only guess was her own jewelry. She lifted a pair of mistletoe earrings still in the box and just stared at them. Walking over I knelt beside her to help pick everything up.
“So that’s my mom.” She bit her lip and hung her head. “The great Diana Noëlle. I apologize, she’s a bit rude, don’t take it personally, she’s like that to everyone. She’ll warm up when hell freezes over.”
She inhaled deeply before marching back into her apartment. She managed to carry everything to the glass countertop within the living room. Sitting down in front of it, she placed her hands in her hair as she stared down at her grandfather’s things.
“A hundred-grand…she came here to steal a hundred-grand’s worth of stuff,” she laughed bitterly. “Do you know how much she gets a month for doing nothing but embarrassing and insulting me? These aren’t even worth anything.” Her hands trembled as she lifted the mistletoe earrings again.
As she spoke I locked the door before moving to sit beside her.
“When I was six, my grandfather took me to the mall to get my ears pierced for Christmas. He got a phone call and was distracted so I went into the toy store. I got lost, and I couldn’t find him, I got scared, and just when I heard this song come on, he found me. He was so upset and so scared that I wasn’t allowed to get my ears pierced anymore. But he gave me these mistletoe earrings and promised he’d take me next time. The next year, in the same mall, we got separated again. This time it wasn’t my fault. He was the one who’d gotten lost, and when I started to get scared again I started to sing Baby It's Cold Outside, and wham, just like that he appeared in front of me. I thought it was the coolest magic trick in the whole world,” she sniffed and blinked her tears away.
Reaching up, I touched her earlobe. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
She’s so beautiful, I thought as she raised her eyebrow in confusion. Reaching up, I wiped her tears. She really was a crybaby and the fact that she knew and tried so hard not to cry was so endearing to me. Everything about her made me love her more, even her anger.
“I’m sorry because I keep forgetting you’re Alfred’s granddaughter.” It explained a lot now actually. But then again hindsight was always 20/20. I understood that she was the granddaughter to the man who’d been like a father to me, but deep down she wasn’t anything but mine. She was my past and present love, so I often forgot about Alfred’s relation to her. That was one thing, this was another. “That Christmas, your grandfather didn’t get lost. He’d actually asked—bothered me—until I agreed to spend time with the both of you during the holidays. When I got to the mall I was fine, but then I had one of the strongest memories I’d ever had. It was painful and I ended up hiding in one of the stores and called him. I was afraid I’d pass out and end up in a hospital. He stayed with me for…I have no idea how long before sending me home and heading back to you.”
Her eyes widened as she realized what that meant “I met you when I was seven?”
“Almost.” I touched one of her curls. “I caught a glimpse of your hair and that was it. I think maybe that’s what brought on the memory.”
“I’m sorry but I’m kind of happy too. Does that make me selfish?” She grinned as she reached up to touch my face.
“Absolutely.” I winked and she made a face at me. “Am I selfish for loving that you’re selfish for me?”
Her grin widened as she leaned forward and put her head on mine. “No, that makes you crazy.”
“Ahh,” I whispered as I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulling her closer to me. “Then I don’t even have to ask, I’m used to being crazy for you.”
“Is that so?” she asked as her lips hovered over mine.
“It is.” I leaned in to kiss her neck.
“Uhhh,” She moaned and ran her fingers through my hair as my hand moved to the zip down the back of her dress. “Malachi…”
“Hmmm?” I asked against her skin. Kissing her chest, I pulled down her bra.
“We…we made it another day.”
I pulled back to look up at her.
She continued speaking. “This morning you—I was worried, and now we’re here together again.”
The sincerity in her voice, how relieved she was, it hurt. Knowing she’d spent the day like I did, worrying if this was the end. For all the strength she demanded of me and us, deep down she was scared. Tucking my arm under her legs I lifted her up and took her towards the bedroom. Walking across the hardwood floor I laid us both in the center of her bed.
“You’re right, we made it,” I whispered, though a voice spoke out in the back of my mind to remind me that anything could happen at any point in time. However, I’d never given in to that fear before and I wouldn’t give in to it now, not with her in my arms. “So, let’s celebrate now, tomorrow, every night for the rest of our long lives.”
Bending over, I kissed right above her breast, over her heart and continued to work my way down from there.
ESTHER
Stop? Think straight? Did they not know that loving her was never an option I chose? Like flowers that bloom in the spring and leaves that drop in fall, it was uncontrollable, it was my nature. I put no conscious effort into it. I could only love her and be forever honored by the love she gave me in return. My love for her ached from the core of my being and spread outward to the rest of me. It kept me warm in frozen waters and cool in scorching lands. I was sure if they cut me open I’d bleed love for her. If any man should love, I’d warn them to do so with the utmost caution, for they would no longer be men but slaves. And slavery is contrary to every man’s philosophy. It was madness. But what is love if not madness? Tell me what other emotion drives a man to betray his basic instinct to survive? Where no rational thought mattered if it did not contain her. From the first moment our eyes met, I knew that I belonged to her. And yet it was her who had first declared she was mine in body, soul, and mind, chaining her heart to my heart, and cementing our love to infinity. Love is the butterfly in Pandora’s box.
He’d written those words in his first novel, The Woman I Love, and when I’d read it, it made my heart race and had left me breathless. Now I was laying naked beside him as the woman he loved.
“How much longer are you going to stare?” he murmured, even though his eyes were shut in the darkness of my room. Reaching over to him, I brushed his hair from his eyes, causing him to look at me.
“Until I physically cannot keep my eyes open any longer,” I whispered back. He said nothing for what felt like hours and his eyelids closed once more, allowing me to see his long eyelashes again. I reached out to touch him again but he caught my hand.
“I’m begging you, Esther…” He licked his lips.
“For what?” I asked when he didn’t go on.
“Mercy,” he replied. “I’m begging you for mercy. I can feel you tugging at my heart, it’s already yours. I’m already yours. But when I look into your eyes, I feel as though you are begging me for more and I’m at a loss as to what else to give you.”
“M…Montana.” My voice cracked but I said it. I said what I wanted. His eyes opened and I repeated it. “I want Montana. I want to make love to you every night and steal your breakfast in the morning. I want to talk about nothing and about everything…Let’s go back.”
He reached up and placed his head on my face before he bent over and kissed my forehead. With a snicker, he said, “So unmerciful.”
Smiling I wrapped my arms around his bare chest. “You’re free to make demands too.”
“I demand,” he whispered as he rolled me onto my back and hovered between my legs, allowing me to feel him pressed up against me, “all of you…forever.”
“Body, mind, and soul…ohh!” I arched my back and gasped as he thrust inside of me.
MALACHI
She snored softly, her hair a mess around her face as she turned onto her side and rolled into a ball. Reaching over, I brushed her hair aside and kissed her forehead.
“Beloved,” I whispered above her.
She grinned and rubbed her eyes as she woke up. “I smell food.”
“I have food,” I smirked as I moved back and gave her space to sit up. Why she bothered to grab the sheets as she sat up was beyond me, but it was cute.
“Good morning,” she said, still dazed as she brushed her hair back.
“Good morning,” I replied as I placed the breakfast tray in front her. “Eat quickly. We have a plane to catch.”
“Huh? Where to?”
“Montana.”
She had to think for a second before laughing and reaching for the orange juice. “You do know I was half asleep when I said that, right?”
“Does it make it any less true? Do you want not want to go—?”
“I do, but there is so much I have to do here. The office—”
“I called them.”
She coughed against her orange juice and I took the glass from her.
“You called my work? Malachi, I want to go, but I can’t just drop everything—”
I lifted the origami airplane I’d made for her and held it right in front of her face. She took it and gently unfolded it.
“There will always be reasons for us to stay, there will always be reasons for us to go, so, my love, close your eyes and tell me, where do you really want to be tomorrow? – Malachi Lord.” She read, looking back at me. “You know it’s a bit pretentious to use your own quotes, right?”
“And here I was thinking it was romantic.”
She inhaled but laughed as she did. “I’m begging you, Malachi…”
“For what?”
“Mercy.” She smiled. “I just woke up and you’re already prepared to run away with me?”
“Esther.” She still didn’t get it. “I’m not trying to run away with you, I’m trying to live with you. Where do you want to live?”
She looked away from me as she took the French toast from the plate. “What time is the flight?”
“This whole time you were going to agree but you just wanted to fight me first, didn’t you?” I laughed and she stuffed a piece of toast into my mouth. Taking a bite I chewed then said, “I love you too.”
“So unmerciful.” She shook her head and took another bite.