Secrets of a Fallen Faerie

The kitchen was silent and brooding. No, the mood of the small room with the grease stained walls and the faint aroma of chilli powder was heavy and noiseless. The space itself was alive with a myriad of sounds; the hum of the fridge freezer, the tick, tick, tick, of the wall-clock, the occasional clicks and whirrings from the gas boiler as the timer kicked it into life. But the two people who occupied the kitchen were hushed and motionless.

The still that held Andrew prisoner was a product of resignation. He was lost in troubled thoughts with no idea what he could do. So he did nothing, save for listen to the clocks aural indications of the passing of time.

Cheryl’s immobility came about through fear. It was not Andrew that held her captive in terror, in fact it seemed far more likely that he should be scared of her than the other way around. She stood, seemingly propped up by the work-surface behind her, shoulders hunched and blonde hair hanging limp and lifeless around her porcelain-perfect face. She stared intently at the dainty silver slip-on shoes that adorned her size three feet, as though they might hold the answer to how she could break the uneasy silence. No answer came. Occasionally she would allow her gaze to flick upwards and to the left, to the chair where Andrew sat at the kitchen table. The movement of her eyes was barely perceptible from behind her hair, and Andrew appeared to not notice the guilt-ridden attention he was receiving. He just sat there, elbows taking advantage of the table’s supportive strength. Big gentle hands clasped tightly together, chin leant on his thumbs, with hot regular breaths dampening the knuckles of his fingers. His eyes rested on the clock; it had no second hand, just a continual tick. Every minute his line of vision would move fractionally with the hand that signalled the end of the previous sixty seconds.

The kitchen was no man’s land, caught in the centre of psychological warfare – it was as though whoever spoke first might feel the sharp sting of defeat. It was the calm, quiet eye in the heart of a wild and frightening storm. It was an unexploded bomb by which two people stood, each unable to decide which wire to cut, lest they bring the whole house down in a detonation of uncontrolled emotion.

Andrew was blind to what had caused this prickly tension, but knew if he said the wrong thing he might never find out. He had known Cheryl for just a few weeks, and in that time had taken her out to the cinema, to the pub, to expensive restaurants. She had met some of his friends who had nodded and winked with approval, and he had been introduced to a couple of hers, who had welcomed him like part of their family. Cheryl and Andrew had laughed together at good jokes and bad, they had talked into the night while waiting for taxis that would take them to their respective homes, and they had shared intense and passionate kisses. But tonight had been the first night that Andrew had ventured as far as inviting Cheryl into his home. She had never offered him the hospitality of an evening - or even an afternoon - at hers, and although she had said nothing, he had been aware of signals that gently suggested that she would be very wary of the implied intimacy of spending any time together unless it was on neutral public ground.

After nearly a month of dating though he had reasoned with himself that it was in no way unacceptable to offer Cheryl reception into his home. In fact he felt that he would appear rude if he kept avoiding allowing her into this important area of his life. He had been meticulous in his planning of the evening so as to get it just right. He had originally hoped to cook for her, but feared that Cheryl might run scared thinking he would expect something in return for his efforts. Instead he had settled for asking her to rent a video to bring over and watch. That way she was watching something she wanted to see and would feel at ease, and as she had paid for the evening’s entertainments there would be no unspoken suggestion that any return of any kind might be owed.

Cheryl had appeared at seven o’clock. She had floated into the house in a wispy skirt; layers of shimmering baby blue material fluttering seductively around her short but slender legs. She had removed an exquisite blue Pashmina and hung it across the banister in the hall, revealing underneath it a silky white top with tiny spaghetti straps. The outfit seemed to epitomize the delicate frame of the girl inside it, making her look all the more fragile and tantalising. He had kissed her softly on the cheek; although he had been bolder on previous occasions it seemed at that moment improper to taint the faerie princess that stood before him.

The evening had started so perfectly. They had gone on to watch Cheryl’s choice of film - one that Andrew had been meaning to rent for a while, yet another indicator of how much common ground the two shared. At the end of the movie they had sat and talked easily, starting with films but soon moving on to many other subjects too. Andrew marvelled at just how much he liked the girl before him. He felt that they were really connecting, and he yearned to take things a step further, but somehow he was too scared of frightening such a delicate creature away. He was completely bemused when Cheryl made a move on him that left little question as to where her intentions lay. One moment they were sitting on the sofa talking about a shared love of writing poetry, the next Cheryl had thrust her arms around Andrew’s neck and kissed him with intensity. Once he had recovered from the unexpectedness of her rather pleasant assault on his person, Andrew was more than happy to respond. They kissed fervently, and within a moment or two Cheryl was straddling Andrew, running her fingers roughly through his soft dark brown hair, then down his neck and back before pulling his shirt out from the security of his trousers, and slipping her hands underneath to explore his upper body in closer detail. She seemed almost possessed, and he could barely contain the excitement he felt. He mirrored her actions by running his fingertips down her back in response. He found the tiny buttons that fastened her flimsy garment and started to release them from the loops that held them in place. The spaghetti straps fell from her shoulders and she wriggled herself free from the top altogether, her semi-nakedness increasing the urgency of their mutual desire. Andrew kissed her neck, then moved down until his lips were just barely brushing her nipples. He could feel how much she wanted him from the way she pushed herself down onto his lap, moving in rhythm against him, their bodies separated by just a few layers of clothing. He moved his hands to her waist, and let his fingers glide across the smooth fabric of her skirt around her hips. To his delight it seemed she wasn’t wearing any underwear, a fact she readily confirmed when he asked her. Cheryl finally came to the conclusion of her teasing, and started to undo Andrew’s trousers, lifting her weight off him just enough to wriggle them down to his knees before setting herself back down to explore her new found treasure with her hands. Andrew leant back in the sofa, moaning softly as she touched him. His hands drifted from her waist down the outside of her legs as far as her knees, then slid under her skirt before they started to go back over their journey in reverse.

That was when everything had changed so dramatically. In a split second Cheryl transformed from fervent seductress to scared little girl. Eyes wide with fear, she stumbled off Andrew’s lap, grabbing her top and struggling to protect her dignity underneath it as the tiny buttons kept sneaking away from her desperate grasps. Still only half done-up, she abandoned the rest of the fixings and dashed into the hall to cover herself with her Pashmina. Andrew stood up bewildered at her sudden and seemingly unprovoked about-turn and hurriedly attempted to dress himself whilst following her into the hallway, convinced she was about to leave. Bizarrely she chose to walk into the kitchen instead, and once fully clothed again, Andrew went after her and stood in the doorway watching as she frantically opened and closed cupboard doors before finally finding a two-thirds empty bottle of Southern Comfort and a dusty whisky glass. She ran the glass under the tap, and Andrew could see her hands shaking. She unscrewed the cap on the bottle and poured a liberal quantity of the dark golden liquid, glass upon glass making an irregular clink as she trembled uncontrollably, before she drank all that she had decanted in one go.

“Cheryl, I’m sorry,” Andrew pleaded, although he was uncertain what exactly it was he was apologising for. She looked up at him, with shock registering in her blue-grey eyes as though she had been entirely oblivious to his presence until that point. She just stood there, staring, wild eyed and edgy, not saying a single word. She would not tear her gaze from his, and the force of her look unnerved him a little.

“Did I do something wrong?” Andrew persisted, and took a few steps towards the frightened young woman in his kitchen.

Still nothing. They were standing just a few scant inches apart, but none of their earlier pleasure was replicated in the return of their closeness. Andrew could almost feel the chill of Cheryl’s hostility towards him. He reached out and gingerly put a hand on her shoulder. She screamed, and her arms flailed violently as she thrashed herself away from his touch. Her Pashmina caught the glass on the worktop behind her and it fell to the floor, smashing into hundreds of twinkling shards. The noise of the breaking glass jolted her out of her terror, and she sank to the floor and scrabbled around picking up the remains of the broken item.

“Let me do that, you’ll cut yourself.” Andrew murmured gently as he bent down beside her. She whimpered softly and moved out of his way as he set about tidying the debris.

Once the last of the glass was removed, Andrew stood up and looked at Cheryl, concern shadowing his brown eyes.

“Coffee?” he asked.

She nodded, no longer looking at him, in fact now making a concerted effort to avoid his gaze in her shame. He boiled the kettle and got out two mugs.

“Milk?”

Cheryl nodded again.

“Sugar?”

This time she shook her head. The conversation of earlier was now a distant memory.

In his mind, Andrew repeatedly questioned what had happened to alter the course of their evening; in reality though he was finding it hard to hit upon the right words to uncover the mystery. Leaving Cheryl’s coffee on the side, he took his own to the kitchen table and settled into the waiting game. He passed the time by watching the clock, hoping that she would open up and explain why she had gone so cold, without being distant enough to want to leave. Cheryl stood and concentrated on her surroundings – the beads on her shoes, the feeling of warmth against her back where nearby steam still rose from the newly boiled kettle, the shaking of her hands that made her too self conscious to want to lift her coffee mug and drink its comforting contents. She couldn’t say anything, for anything she had to tell was too huge to just come out with. So she waited for Andrew to speak, to ask the right questions that would unlock her secret.

Minutes passed and became an hour. It was Andrew who broke the spell of silence, fearing that they might stay there all night, and realising that Cheryl was not going to open up to him.

“Can I drive you home?” He inquired.

Cheryl’s mind screamed a million words – “Wrong question! Ask me the right question so we can talk again and be like we were before! Is that it? Do you hate me so much that you just want rid of me without even caring why it all ended so badly? Kiss me; tell me everything is okay, we could start all over again. Give me a hug; tell me you don’t need sex from me, that you like me for me, not as a toy for your own pleasure. Don’t just send me away and never see me again, I couldn’t stand it.”

But she couldn’t say any of them, so she just nodded again, and went into the hall to retrieve her bag from the bottom of the stairs where she had left it. She walked slowly to the front door where Andrew stood waiting, looking sad but resigned.

“What happened tonight?” He asked her, and her black cloud lifted. He’d done it, he’d asked the right question, or at least the first question in the required series.

Cheryl took his hand and led him back to the living room. She sat back down on the sofa where they had been so close less than two hours earlier, and pulled him down gently to join her.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready,” she told him, hoping that her eyes would betray that this wasn’t the end of the story.

“You seemed pretty ready to me!” he said, a smile playing across the lips that had previously kissed her with passion and fire. She blanched at his words, and he cursed himself for his insensitivity.

“There must be more to it than that,” Andrew pressed, a little more gently this time. He liked Cheryl a lot, and he wasn’t going to throw what they could have away over a break in communication when they had always been so relaxed in conversation until then.

Cheryl nodded.

“Talk to me,” Andrew implored.

“I can’t,” Cheryl replied, her eyes misting up with tears she was desperate not to spill.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No!” She looked shocked at the very idea. “I know you wouldn’t… would you?”

“Of course not! I love you.” The words had escaped from his mouth before he had even realised he was thinking them, and he watched for Cheryl’s reaction with dread in his heart. To his utter horror her tears flowed freely then, accompanied by bitter heaving sobs that made her petite shoulders tremble.

“Don’t, you mustn’t say that,” she begged. “I’m not worth it Andrew, you mustn’t love me. You wouldn’t love me if you knew.”

“Knew what?” he asked. The question he really wanted the answer to was ‘Do you love me too?’ but he was far too scared of her rejection to risk that one.

“I can’t,” she repeated.

“Why? I won’t mind. Whatever it is I won’t mind. I love you.”

Andrew felt like he was begging. No, he knew he was begging; he just hadn’t wanted it to be so obvious to her how much he needed her to trust him.

“I love you too,” she whispered, faerie dust words sprinkling the tormented tension of the air around them.

“So trust me.”

“Can I kiss you Andrew?”

He smiled, and pulled her towards him. Once more she moved over so that she straddled his lap, and they kissed, but very softly and tentatively this time. Slowly she pulled her face away from his, and looked into his eyes, searching for the signs that he would not run from her. He smiled, and stroked a stray wisp of blonde hair back behind her left ear.

Taking a deep breath she took the hem of her wispy skirt between her fingertips, and pulled it up along her legs. Andrew gasped slightly at the crisscross of scars that mapped her thighs. Some were razor cuts, some obviously deeper; one had obviously received several stitches to reunite cruelly parted skin. It crossed his mind that he was supposed to be bothered by what he was seeing, and in some ways he was, because he hated the fact that the beautiful mystic girl before him had felt that kind of pain. But at the same time he experienced a guilty relief because her crazed reaction to their intimacy wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t been the cause of her distress, and in his eyes the severity of her outburst was diminished purely by the fact that he wasn’t responsible for it. He tore his gaze away from the maze of scarred skin, and instead perused the troubled lines that etched her preciously innocent looking face. He lifted his hands to her cheeks and tenderly pulled her towards him for another kiss. After a moment locked in an affectionate embrace they parted, and Andrew saw the relieved wonder in his girlfriend’s expression. Cheryl got up from his lap, and refusing to worry about what might be said about her scars in the future, she took his hand and led him upstairs to bed.