When I was a little girl, I was terrified of the dark. Not just a little scared...pertrified almost. So my mom bought me this little lamp shaped like a ballerina. I used to lie in my bed, night after night, and stare at that lamp, feeling safe in it's rosy glow as the ballerina spun slowly, casting dancing shadows on the wall. It played some sort of music...the music from the ballet of "The Sleeping Beauty". I used to sing the song from the Disney movie version in my head every night until I finally fell asleep.
"I know you, I waltzed with you once upon a dream..."
Now, the dark that so frightened me is my only real escape. I always breathe a sigh of relief when Danny turns off the light by our bed at night. That way, he can't see my face as I lie there next to him. He can't look into my eyes and read my mind the way he can in the light. In the dark, it's safe to want him.
"I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam..."
And it's the dark that I find Ray in. The dark of this very bedroom, the dark of his office and even once, God help me, the dark of a confessional at St. Michael's.I told Ray about Danny. That I care for him, which doesn't really bother me. That I want him, which scares me to death. I waited for Ray to condemn me. For him to kick me out of his office and say he never wanted to see me again. I think I wanted that. But isn't that what I always want? For a man to take control and take things completely out of my hands? It's just so easy that way.
But Danny won't do that.
And now, neither will Ray.
He just smiled a strange smile at me and said, "Why does wanting Danny scare you so much,Michelle? After all, you want me."
Yes. Yes, I definitely did. It would have been ridiculous to protest, seeing as how I was naked on the floor of his office at the time, my whole body sore, but still singing from his touch. "I don't know," I told him truthfully. "It's just that...well, Danny is...I don't know. Wanting Danny goes against everything I was ever taught. At least you're a nice person."
Ray pulled away from me and watched me with unreadable eyes.
Then he laughed.
"A nice person?" he asked incredulously.
Feeling self-concious, I had begun to search for my clothes in the dark.
"And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem..."
"You're a priest," I needlessly pointed out.
As if that's what made him a good person.
Would a good priest screw his cousin's wife?
I had almost laughed at my own thoughts.
Would a good priest screw anyone?
Ray had remained sitting on the floor of his office, still laughing, a harsh and ugly sound. "A nice person," he sneered again and my hands started shaking as they fastened my sweater.
"Do you know what I was before I became a priest, Michelle?" Ray asked, standing up. He was completely naked, but not self-concious at all.
I shook my head and forced myself to concentrate on the buttons that were slipping thorugh my fingers.
"I was a killer, Michelle," he said flatly.
My head snapped up and I felt like someone had electrocuted me. His eyes were hard and glassy as they drifted over me and I still saw desire there.
"I-I don't believe you," I stammered out.
I couldn't believe him.
He just laughed again and ran a hand over his face. "Oh, God," he said on a despairing laugh. "You've been fucking me because you thought I was safe! You rationalized it, saying that, heck, I was a priest after all. I couldn't be such a bad guy. Jesus Christ. If you wanted to fuck the family's nice guy, Mrs. Santos, you shouldn't have looked any further than your own husband."
I thought I might actually throw up. It couldn't be true. I couldn't have done these things with a killer. Something in me owuld have rebelled, right? I was only doing this with Ray because he was the only good part in the Santos family. That was why I had sought him out.
Wasn't it?
"You're lying," I said shakily. "You just want to make me feel bad and-"
He had grabbed my arm and pulled me around to face him. "No, that's where you're wrong, Michelle. I never want you to feel guilty about this. I want you to feel guilty when you're with Danny because of me." I looked in those eyes and knew he was telling the truth. He had killed before. I could see it flickering in the depths of his eyes.
Feeling sick, I pulled away and mumbled, "I'm not 'with' Danny. Not the way you mean. You know that."
He laughed again and ran a finger over my cheek. "I know. Will I see you again?"
I should have said no. I should have been sickened with myself.I had made love, if you could call it that, to a man who had killed people with his own hands. I had let those hands, hands that had literally had blood on them, touch me in ways no other man had.
And I'd been pushing away Danny because I thought he had been a killer.
The irony was enough to force a laugh, or was it a sob, harshly from my throat.
"Miranda?" Ray asked, his lips close to my ear.
Sometimes, when we're alone like this, he calls me Miranda again. I wonder if that's because he can pretend I'm his that way. "Will you be back?" he murmured again.
And I nodded.
"But if I know you, I know what you'll do..."
He took me again on the floor. And I reveled in every single kiss, every stroke of his fingers. He kissed my neck and my breasts, moving down to my stomach. His breath lightly fanned the curls between my legs and then he kissed my hipbones. He moved his lips all the way down my legs, even lifting my leg to massage the arch of my foot with his tongue.
And I let him.
I clutched his shoulders and whimpered when he entered me and bowed my back off the carpet when the first climax came. And when he drove me to a second, I softly cried his name and there was no regret in me as we collapsed against each other. When it was over, I laid next to him and peered through the darkness of the office. And then, in a soft voice, I told him about my fear of the dark when I was younger and the lamp my mother bought me. The story actually made him smile. I ran my hand down his chest, delighting in the play of muscle under warm, sunbrowned skin, and murmured, "You're that lamp for me now,Ray. You're the only thing holding back the darkness."
He laughed, that laugh I love and hate and don't understand and stood up, saying, "Baby, I am the darkness."
And I knew he was right.
And, even more than that, I knew I'd be back.
When I came home today, there was a package on my bed. There was no address, just my name in a familiar, bold scrawl. I knew it was the lamp before I even opened it. Sure enough, the ballerina I knew from childhood smiled vapidly at me from her organdy covered perch.I didn't even wonder how he'd gotten it. There was a note taped to the base.
"M-
Too much dark to hold off alone. Thought this might help.
R"
I plugged the lamp in and watched the ballerina twirl as the tinkling music filled the room.
"...You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream..."
Then I started to cry.