Kiss the Stars (Devon Slaughter Book 1) (4 page)

I KEPT glancing
in my rearview mirror, sure he would follow me. And I didn’t even know if he
had a car. He hadn’t the night we met. In fact, he had a way of appearing out
of nowhere.

When a pair of
headlights got close, my hands turned sweaty inside my gloves. The speedometer
crept up past fifty. I was in a residential zone where the limit was
twenty-five. I had a phobia of police officers and was afraid of getting a
ticket but I kept going, faster and faster.

In his beautiful
eyes I had seen something that scared me.

I waited for the
gate to open, counting to eight forward and backward. It was hard to catch my
breath. My ears rang. The headlights had disappeared blocks ago but I expected Devon
to come around the corner at any moment, like in the movies.

Once I was safe
inside, with the doors locked, I began to doubt myself. There had been a few
instances in the past where certain people had struck me as villainous, such as
my first college roommate. She was like Georgie in the way she cut me with her
sidelong glances, and hid things from me and snickered with her friends when I
walked past. It was hard to believe it was entirely in my imagination but Dr.
Ess said it was.

I kept to my
routine, lighting the fire and candles, dimming the chandelier so the house was
cast in a warm glow.

I perused my
book shelves, looking for just the right book to take my mind off Devon. I had
so many books simply because I couldn’t resist them. Each one promised a new
world; an escape from my own for a little while.

My gaze landed
on my valise. I dug through it, wondering what had happened to my copy of
Tristessa
.
I kept seeing Devon’s face, the way his lips had shaped the words as he
described the cab ride in the rain, the grim beauty of the night and of
Tristessa high on morphine.

Who’d ever read
Tristessa
besides me?

I found the book
on the floor where it must have fallen. I snatched it up. My eyes scanned the
first page. He’d recited it almost exactly. Maybe, in fact, word for word. He’d
said lugubrious and there it was on the page, along with Citlapol, which fell
from his tongue with ease. He’d even rolled the R when he said Tristessa.

Something cold
sliced through me.

I sat on the
edge of the sofa. My eyes kept probing the shadows. I went to the kitchen and
got a drink of water. Staring through the window, I realized what I’d seen in
Devon’s eyes—the same twisted longing I felt, searching into the dark.

Deep down, I had
yearned for him to follow me home.

* * *

The next
morning, when I rolled a seven, before rushing out the door, I thought it might
be my lucky day, until I saw Georgie’s yellow Mini Cooper parked in my space.
Bitch
.

I got to my
classroom seven minutes before the bell, as I’d planned. But it was too much
time. I did my nails, taking off the black polish. I put on a coat of pink.
Still, I was left with three minutes. It felt like forever, sitting at my desk
in the quiet.

Sexy images
raced through my mind. Let’s face it, I thought. Henry was ugly next to Devon
and Henry had rejected me. Devon could have anyone so what was I doing
daydreaming about him? A headache thrummed behind my eyes. I dug through my
desk, looking for an aspirin.

My first class
spent the entire period writing an essay and there I was again,
thinking
.

I had plenty of
work—papers to grade, essay topics to dream up, books to assign. I forced
myself to focus on the paper in front of me. When I wrote a comment in the
margin, my hand trembled.

I checked my
watch, and waited. “Seven minutes,” I announced.

A girl at the
back of the class made a derisive sound, standing up and hoisting her backpack
to her shoulder. She slapped her essay on my desk. “Can I leave? If I’m done
already?” She wore large red-framed glasses and her brown hair in a side
ponytail.

“Sure,” I said
but I was afraid she would be sorry. If she hadn’t seemed so agitated, I would
have made her sit down and read over her essay.

The rest of the
class used all forty-seven minutes. Most of my students seemed nervous when
they dropped off their booklets. I had asked if Poe’s poem,
Annabel Lee
,
was about Everlasting Love or Obsession. There was no right or wrong answer,
obviously.

I peeked inside
a few of the essays to see which view was most popular. Everlasting Love
seemed
to be winning. I felt gratified. I hoped to show these kids the kind of world
where love conquered and souls entwined forever, even if it only happened in
books.

Before my next
class, I went to the Girl’s room down the hall. When I pushed open the door, I
discovered Georgie brushing her hair in front of the mirror. I wasn’t about to
pee in the same room with Georgie.

“Ruby,” she
said, before I could escape. She caught my gaze in the mirror.

“Georgie,” I
said.

She turned
around and dropped her brush into a shiny leather bag hanging off her arm. “Look,
since we’re here, I should tell you something. Woman to woman.”

My stomach
cramped. The air in the bathroom was stale and the water in the toilets had a
sulfur smell. I could see tiny black stubs above the bridge of Georgie’s nose
where she had plucked out a uni-brow.

“Henry told me a
secret about you,” her voice lilted on ‘secret’.

My throat got
small. I thought of my worst secret. How did Henry Thorne know? But I knew how.
Somewhere in cyberspace there was a file and it was right there in plain sight
for any twelve year old hacker.

Shame crept over
me.

I took in the
cruel flicker in Georgie’s eyes, the faint line on her jaw where her make-up
didn’t blend. I felt unreal, as if I could float away.

She brought me
back to earth. “Henry says you kiss like a fish,” she giggled, the way she had
behind the partition. She moved her mouth like a fish and made a sucking noise.

* * *

My Adult
Literacy class was sparsely attended. Most of the students had jobs and kids
and it was a struggle for them. I felt a surge of affection for the nine people
who sat under the florescent lights, going through the tasks I gave them when
they could have been at home with their families.

I found myself
reaching out to shake their hands, or pat them on the arm, as they went out the
door. Soon, Georgie would take over and I hadn’t said a word. I couldn’t bear
to break the news.

In the parking
lot, the air was fresh on my skin.

I am a
terrible kisser
.
What
did it matter in the whole scheme of things?

As I counted the
steps to my car, I became aware of something unusual. I hadn’t noticed it
before. There were only three cars left in the lot, one of them mine, the other
a silver Volvo and there, clear on the other side, by the street—Georgie’s
Mini.

She had moved
it. So she must have left and come back.

Why?
What was she doing here so late?

A wave of nausea
came over me. Not because Georgie lurked somewhere on campus but because of the
idea that came to me. My mind circled it, coming close, jumping back, as if it
was a coiled snake.

Don’t
.

Yes
.

Do it
.

No
.

The sun had left
a strip of pink on the horizon and all around the sky deepened to the darkest
blue. Above me, lights exploded, big and white. A lone coyote howled. The sound
careened off the rooftops of the city.

I loaded my
valise into the car, freeing myself for movement, an act of premeditation. I
heard my breath in my ears, a surreal soft panting and the other sound—the
scrape of metal against metal.

Then I was
running.

I LAY in bed,
watching a spider traverse its web. I hadn’t stopped thinking of Ruby since I
met her, which was barely three days ago and no time at all when your life
might be endless. She had awakened something in me.

I thought about
Tristessa too, the beautiful junkie, how she lit candles for the Madonna. (I
pictured her as Ruby.) I liked the way the last line of the book broke off
mid-sentence and how the narrator said his life was a legend because it was
his.

The taco stands
and Mexico City slums reminded me of my trip back up to the States, traveling
at night because daylight made me sick.

It felt like
years ago now, though I got confused about time. I had come to on the shores of
Lake Nicaragua, where a woman kissed me. It was a distant memory, dark and
surreal. I remembered being cold. Her kiss was warm.

At first, so
many things made me sick. Until, one night, on the long road up to Tikal, I was
seduced in the back of the bus. I consumed a complete stranger in the height of
ecstasy. She was my first victim. Afterwards, I ran through the jungle, feeling
like a rock star who’d snorted lines of cocaine off the bodies of starlets.

Last night, Ruby
leaked energy all over the place, a big beautiful mess. After she left the bar,
I was full of strength. I walked with the moon for miles, watching it dip in
and out of the clouds.

I thought of how
she laughed at her own joke, and how there was a bitter edge lacing her tone
when she said ‘bitch,’ as if she was jealous of a character in a book. I felt
how easily her emotions shifted, and how powerfully they raged, like an
electrical storm.

Now, I
stretched, still charged.

After dressing
in a clean T-shirt and jeans, I moved silently through the streets.

An old phone
booth caught my attention. It sat under a green street lamp outside the
7-Eleven. The door gaped open and a piece of paper was tacked inside. I reached
in and tore it off.

LOST CAT.

It was the same
photo on top of Ruby’s piano. I recognized the cat’s disgruntled expression.
His name was Alceste. Poor bastard. There was a phone number to call, which I
took as a sign. I threw the paper away. Ruby’s number and the cat’s mean face
were etched in my mind. Alceste and I would cross paths, at some point, if he
was still alive. I knew the city intimately.

I got to the
boardwalk as Ruby was leaving the bar, wearing a short black cocktail dress and
knee-high boots. Just seeing her gave me a jolt. She veered. A smoker in a
dirty wife-beater broke from his group to follow her.

I made my
presence known, smacking the guy upside the head. “Get lost,” I said.

He gaped at me
and trotted back to his friends.

“Hey,” I called
to Ruby, catching up to her. “You’re not driving, are you?” I sounded like your
average concerned citizen, as if drinking and driving was the worst sin I could
imagine.

She put her hand
to her throat, a protective gesture that turned me on.

With both hands,
I braced myself against the wall, trapping her. I ran my gaze down the length
of her, taking in her short skirt. When our eyes met, her pupils were huge and
black. Her lips parted and I breathed in the sweetness of whisky and torment on
her breath. A new cut shimmered on the surface—humiliation.

I couldn’t
resist touching her creamy thigh, fingering the tiny buckle of her stocking
strap. Desire overpowered her fear. I lowered my head to graze the crook of her
neck with my lips.

She stilled. She
was so damaged; I could feel it, like a slow burn. She had tragic secrets.

When she opened
her eyes, her pupils had gone back to normal. Reality flooded in, a rush of
cigarette smoke mingling with human voices, bass thumping in the bar, the red
glow of the neon sign above us.

She grasped the
sleeve of my T-shirt. “Kiss me,” she said.

“What?”

“Kiss me,” she
said, again. Color warmed her cheeks, making her childlike. I had a sudden
memory of a girl from my past, a girl with long legs and soft skin. I couldn’t
remember her face. Or her name.

My last kiss had
been on the beach in Nicaragua. The woman’s hair was wet, like something slimy
crawling over my flesh. I didn’t kiss my victims.

“No,” I shrugged
off Ruby’s hand.

* * *

I watched her go
down the boardwalk. From the tilt of her head, I wondered if she was crying and
I wanted to see the tears glistening in her big eyes.

I followed a
block behind. When she reached her car, she fumbled with her keys and dropped
them. She got down on her hands and knees on the sidewalk. I felt a predatory
rush. I was beside her in a flash. “Come on, get up,” I held out my hand.

But she shook
her head. “My keys.”

I gazed down at
the sparkly clips in her bright hair, the brown roots along her tender part. I
fished her keys from the gutter and offered my hand again but she ignored me. I
watched her get to her feet. She reached for the keys but I slid them in my
pocket. “I’ll drive,” I said.

“I’m not drunk,”
she said.

“So?” She was
drunk.

“So give me my
keys.”

“Get them
yourself.” I knew she wouldn’t.

She hunched in
the passenger seat, facing the window. “Turn here,” she said. “Make a left up
at the next street.” After a few blocks, she started crying, swiping at her
tears in a sneaky way, like I wouldn’t notice. A couple of times, I veered
across the center line from staring.

I said, “What’s
wrong?”

“Nothing.”

We waited at her
gate.

She took a shaky
breath. “I don’t know why I have to cry all the time. I hate being a crier.
Maybe I am drunk. It was the
worst
day…unbelievable. This other teacher
is such a bitch. She goes out of her way to humiliate me. And I—I just make it
easy for her.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It’s like I
walk straight into her trap every time.”

“So you’re a
teacher. Is that what the books are for?”

“I must look
awful,” she said.

Black darkened
her eyes, making them all the more blue. Dark tracks ran down her face. A tear
trembled on her cheek. I leaned over and kissed it, wanting to feel her salty
pain on my lips.

A shudder went
through her body. Time slowed. I felt her eyelashes brushing against my face.
When her mouth sought mine, I drew back. She let out a moan.

I drove through
the gate.

* * *

Inside, she lit
the fire and candles.

I found it
pitiful and lovely, the way she clung to her rituals, as if they would save
her. I cast a glance at her piano, remembering how I’d enjoyed watching her
play when she didn’t know I was there.

She followed my
gaze. “Do you play?” she asked.

I flexed my hands,
looking at them. It seemed I had been forced to learn as a child. I also had a
sudden memory of scraping a bow across a violin. “No,” I said.

She cocked her
head. “Do you have photographic memory?”

I decided not to
answer, and in fact to employ one of her own favorite tricks. As if she hadn’t
spoken, I said, “What about you? Do you play?”

“I don’t read
music,” she said. “I play by ear.”

She showed me
her record collection,
everything from the
Sex Pistols
’ only
album to
Lucinda Williams
,
Foo Fighters
and
Muse.
Many of
the bands I knew. A few others, like
Deer Tick
, I didn’t. Disjointed
images flitted at the edge of my consciousness.

“How long have
you been collecting?” I said.

Her pouty mouth
turned up at the corners. “Since I was seven. I like old-school alternative.
This was my grandmother’s,” she ran her hand over the shiny wood of the
cabinet.

“She’s gone?” I
said.

“Yes.” Grief
washed over her.

“Were you close?”

She ignored me,
sorting through her records, as if looking for something. Her hands were tiny
with those sad bitten-down nails painted pink.

“I loved her
more than anything,” she said, after a beat. Her words hung in the air.

“Was your
grandmother like you?”

“No…I take after
my mother.” She found the record she wanted and put it on the turn table.
Nirvana
blared from hidden speakers. She turned down the volume. When she wouldn’t look
at me, I tilted her chin.

Her pulse beat
in her throat.

“Tell me why you
cry,” I said, softly.

She tried to
look away, but I held her chin, forcing her to meet my gaze.

I felt the full
power of her sadness.

Her face turned
white. Even her lips were pale and trembling. She had never looked more
beautiful. “I don’t tell anyone anything,” she whispered.

“I’m not just
anyone…”

I cupped her
face with both hands and devoured the intensity of her blue gaze, so
unnaturally bright, the dark smear of her make-up. I took in her baby lips, her
soft round cheeks dusted with freckles.

Kurt Cobain’s
tortured voice cried, “
My girl, my girl
…
don’t lie to me
…”

My heart surged.
Flames on the candles leaped bright orange. The fire crackled and turned red,
like the sun going down.

“You can tell
me, Ruby.” But I didn’t care what she said. I didn’t care about her tragic
secrets. I was drunk with her pain, wanting more.

“My mother went
insane,” she said.

I wanted to bite
her neck, bite her everywhere. I was going to break my one and only rule and
kiss her. I wanted to swallow her whole.

She gazed up at
me with such open trust, my breath caught. I dropped my hands and took a step
back, confused. There was a sound in my ears, like humming.

She touched my
arm. Her eyes glimmered.

I’m sorry.
Christ, Ruby. I’m so sorry.

And I didn’t
know why I was sorry. Not really, except that I was hurting her. The
realization gave me vertigo, as if the earth could crumble and I would drop
down into a dark abyss.

She went to the
sofa and unlaced her boots. When she took them off, she lined them up, toes
pointing away. Her lips moved ever so slightly. There was a palpable energy in
the room, like a clock ticking.

I wondered why
there wasn’t a clock. These old houses always had clocks, the kind you wound up
every day and I could just see her tending to that ritual. But the only clock
was the one on her slender wrist.

When she curled
up on the sofa, she accidentally flashed me her black lace panties, before
tugging down her skirt. The sight brought me back to my senses. I didn’t like
feeling weak and afraid of whatever waited with its cavernous jaws.

Get what you
came for, Devon. Think of the slutty underwear.

I knew she was a
virgin. The certainty of her virginity was like her pulse, whispering inside
me. I thought: Why wear sexy lingerie and a short skirt to a sleazy bar? I
remembered the old joke about would you really want your heavenly reward to be
a whole harem of virgins, if you could have just one slut?

Better make her
my slut, I thought. “I saw your poster about your cat, Alceste,” I said. “Did
he run away?”

“I guess so. He
doesn’t like people. That’s why I named him Alceste. You know,
The
Misanthrope
?
By Moliere?”

“Sure,” I said.

She was so
unaware of the fact that I had taken mercy on her.

“He’s probably
dead,” she sounded morose, worried about an old cat. I thought she should go
out and get a better looking cat, a sweet cuddly thing.

I went around
the sofa to sit next to her.

I ran my hand up
her leg, unhooking her stocking. I stroked the velvet flesh behind her knee.
She watched me. Her pleasure stole over me. I thought of the trust in her eyes
and breathed in her soapy scent.

Leaning close, I
licked her pulse. Her breath turned shallow. A sheen of sweat glistened at her
temples. She watched from partly lowered lids.

I touched her
where she’d never been touched, except maybe by her own hand.

Gently, I pushed
her thighs apart. I slipped off her panties and had to kneel on the floor, to
reach her with my mouth. I kissed her small patch of curls, and pulled her
closer. My tongue found her clitoris. She gasped and rocked forward. Her thighs
began to tremble. I spread her legs further.

I tried to keep
it slow but she raced ahead, unstoppable.

She arched her
back and cried out. “
Oh
…Oh, my God.”

I stood up and
pressed her down into the sofa cushions, so she was reclined. I sat next to her
again. When her eyes opened, I stared into her blue irises and listened to her
heartbeat as it slowed.