METROPOLITAN BLUES

By Murmur

"This city is what it is because our citizens are what they are"-
Plato


03: IN THE COLD; PROLOGUE

    He woke up reluctantly, struggling against it.  Every time 
he came close to becoming conscious, he rolled over and tried 
again, tried to recapture oblivion.  Finally, however, the unending 
pressure on his bladder forced him awake.  Grumbling 
incoherently, he slipped off his bare bed and padded to the 
bathroom, his eyes still stubbornly closed.
    After flushing the toilet, he sidestepped over to the sink and 
splashed his face with cold water, waking up with a shock.  He 
quickly twisted the hot water knob and waited for it to warm up as 
he brushed his teeth.  When it was hot enough, he spat, rinsed, and 
began to shave.  He tried not to look at himself as he did it.  He had 
been surprised that he could still feel such guilt.  He tried not to see 
his tired eyes inside his thin face; the narrow cheeks and long nose 
framed by unkempt dirty blonde hair.  He nicked himself twice as 
he shaved, once just next to his Adam's apple and once on his chin.  
He washed away the soap and cleaned off the long razor he had 
shaved with and went back into his bedroom.
    The source of his guilt was laying on the bed still, the 
sheets and blankets wrapped around her.  Her short blue hair hid 
her closed eyes from him and the tiny bars of light coming through 
the slats of the window blinds crisscrossed across her pale skin.  
She was even more beautiful than she had been the night before in 
that District 14 sex club where he had picked her up.  She was only 
fourteen years old, though closer to fifteen.  He groaned as quietly 
as he could, railing against his stupidity.
    He couldn't even come up with any good excuses in his 
head.  Their only virtue was in being true, and that was little virtue 
under the circumstances.  The lighting had been really bad in the 
sex club and she hadn't sounded underage and I was a bit drunk, 
too, and we only had sex the once after I found out, and yes, 
officer, I think you're absolutely right to beat me up with that 
metal pipe, I'd do much the same if I were in your position.
    He groaned again, this time a bit too loud.  The girl stirred, 
moving under the curled sheets and blankets, wrapping them 
tighter around her arms but exposing her delicate feet and calves.  
He gritted his teeth, remembering last night's sex and hating 
himself for wanting more.
    The worst thing of it was, was that he couldn't for the life 
of him remember her name.  He knew that he was scum, but he 
never knew that he was this bad.  He never knew that he was a 
pedophile, a child molester.  A sudden fear of death came over 
him; he'd never feared death before, not really, but now he felt it 
so strongly because he was convinced that when he died he would 
go to hell and burn forever.  Though he had done terrible things in 
his life, he never thought that he actually deserved hell before now.
    He tried to hate the girl, tried to hate her for seducing him 
and then not telling him her age until after he'd committed crimes 
against goodness many, many times, but he couldn't find the room 
for it.  He was too filled up with self-loathing to hate her.
    She stirred again then, humming almost sub-vocally.  Her 
eyes fluttered as she woke up.  She sighed loudly, almost a yawn, 
as if she expelled sleep from her with a breath.  She turned on her 
back and then sat up.  She turned her face to him, her red eyes 
bright in the low light of the room.
    "Good morning," she said, her voice calm, even, still; her 
face much the same.  It had been that voice that had fooled him, so 
calm, so knowing.  As if she held a vast secret close to her.  That 
lent her an ageless quality, a spiritual maturity that he mistook for 
a physical maturity.  It was, frankly, what had attracted him to her.
    "Morning," he said in return.  Unsure of what to say next, 
he said what first innocuous thing that came to mind.  "What 
would you like for breakfast?"
    "Some cereal, please," she said.  "And juice, if you have 
any."
    "Sure," he said, going to the bedroom door.  Out of the 
corner of his eye, he saw the girl slip out of the covers and walk 
over to the dresser, where she had neatly folded her clothes on top 
of the night before.  He watched the way her muscles worked 
under her skin and remembered how they'd moved last night.  She 
had just put on her bra as he turned a corner and immediately he 
began to hit himself in the face with the palm of his hand, 
punishing himself for the stabs of lust he felt as he watched her.  
He did this as he walked down the stairs to the kitchen.
    He took two large bowls, spoons and glasses on the dining 
room table before returning to the kitchen for the cartons of milk 
and orange juice and the cereal.  He noticed on the counter a basket 
of fruit, apples, bananas and oranges, and decided to take that as 
well.  When he came out of the kitchen he saw that she was 
already sitting at the table.  He stopped, unsure what to say or do 
and would have stayed stopped if the kitchen door hadn't hit it.  He 
coughed, once, and went to the table.
    "I'm sorry," he said.  "I only have Whole Wheat Quincy-
Os for cereal."
    "It's fine," she said.  She took the milk and cereal from him 
and poured both of them into each bowl as he carefully placed the 
basket between them.  Feeling the need to reciprocate, he splashed 
orange juice into both glasses before sitting down.  She 
immediately drained the glass and pushed it towards him as she 
took her first large scoop of cereal.  He wordlessly filled her glass 
again and began to eat, all the while watching her.  She ate her 
cereal slowly, chewing carefully, but for all the grace she had hew 
was struck by how young she looked, how innocent and pure.  He 
marveled at it, all lust dwindling down, and the self-loathing 
becoming more and more unbearable.
    "Last night," he began, before his throat closed.  He 
coughed, uncomfortably aware of her red eyes on him.  "Last night 
was a big mistake."
    She said nothing, only continuing to watch him as she ate 
her cereal.
    "I wish you'd told me how old you were before we . . . 
started," he said.  "I would never have . . . I've never . . . I'm 
not . . . .  I wish you'd told me then none of this would have 
happened."
    "I enjoyed last night very much," she said finally.  "Didn't 
you enjoy yourself?"
    "I . . . yes," he confessed.  "But that's not the point!  We 
shouldn't have done it.  It's . . . it's rape."
    "Oh?" she said, her face and voice unnervingly calm.  
"Statutory, perhaps."
    He stared at her, shocked.  Was there nothing that broke her 
calm?  Finally, perversely wanting her to hate him, he said, "I 
don't even remember your name."
    She smiled, then, a small, soft smile that transformed her 
completely.  Her eyes shone with an inner brightness that made 
him feel glad to have lived long enough to see it.  An 
overwhelming affection for her came over him, making him want 
to take her in his arms and make sure that she smiled like that 
always and forever; his heart began to beat heavily in his chest.
    "It's Rei," she said.  "My name is Rei."
    "That's a lovely name," he said, smiling for the first time 
that morning.
    "Thank you," she said.  She reached into the fruit basket 
and took out an apple.  She bit into it delicately, her lips almost 
kissing the skin of the apple as her unseen teeth clawed at it.  After 
she chewed and swallowed, she held out the apple to him.  "Would 
you like a bite?"
    "No, thanks," he said, reminding himself that being 
entranced by how she ate was wildly inappropriate.  She got up 
then, her spoon clattering in an empty bowl, and gulped down her 
second glass of orange juice.  
    "I have to be going now," she said.
    "Oh," he said awkwardly.  "Okay.  Should I, uh . . . can I 
drive you home?"  He truly hoped that she didn't take him up on 
his offer but custom and whatever gallantry he had left made him 
ask.
    "No, thank you."  She walked to the front door and opened 
it but turned before she crossed the threshold.  She stood on her 
tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, a short peck.  "I like you very 
much.  I hope I can see you again, Fargo."
    Then she was gone, leaving him gaping after her.  She had 
called her Fargo, and he was damned sure that he had never told 
her that name, his trade name, his most intimate alias and he never 
gave it out except for intimates.  And despite what happened last 
night, she was definitely not one of those intimates.  And he could 
never have been drunk enough to give it out to a girl he'd only met.  
So how had she known?
    He stood just before the threshold, shivering in the morning 
cold.



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