SIX

Love, in Itself

Time rolled past with the uniformity of gravel to a roller compactor, and soon winter had settled over Cabal.

“Why won't you let me stay?” Sarah whined.

“Because,” Sascha said, thoroughly examining his grocery list.

“I'll stop eating so much,” she bargained. “I won't ask you about your paintings.”

Sascha ignored her and thought aloud. “Did Francis want French roast or espresso?”

“I'll do the laundry, I'll water the garden...” she listed chores on her fingers, acutely aware of the fact Sascha was paying little to no attention to anything she was saying.

“Why use is coffee to a dead guy, anyway?” Sascha wondered under his breath. “An intangible dead guy, at that?”

“I'll keep my hands to myself.”

Sascha clicked his tongue and bopped the girl on the forehead, visibly annoyed. “Would you cut it out?”

She bit her lip, reprimanded. She knew the last one had went too far even before she had said it. Sascha hated to be reminded about their relationship; it made him feel dirty.

“The reason I'm sending you home is because you're fifteen and impressionable,” Sascha said. “And if your dad finds out I've been harboring you as a stowaway for the past month, he'll likely finish killing me.”

“But—”

“Sarah,” Sascha left her no wiggle room. “Tomorrow's Christmas dinner. You're going home tonight, end of discussion.”

A long silence feel, laced with only the dusk, the street, and their feet as they hit the sidewalk.

“Did we get everything we needed?” Sarah inquired, demure and subdued.

“As much as my paycheck allows,” Sascha remarked. “It’ll have to do.”

It was strange to see the duo (and the rest of Cabal) decked out in winter gear. Sascha wore a black leather jacket and a scarf around his neck, while Sarah wore a puffy pink coat and a glittering hat. For the first time in memory, New Mexico's Christmas holiday was actually cold enough to warrant the use of their display-only fireplaces. Cold enough, according to Sascha's very own ghost-of-a-weatherman Cecil Davis, to snow.

“Look, Sascha!” Sarah exclaimed. They were walking down Main Street, Sascha carrying a full-to-bursting paper grocery sack in both of his arms. “It’s snowing!”

Droplets of frozen water floated down from above and dusted the road. People stopped in their tracks; some got out of their cars and stood in the street, marveling the rare winter miracle.

“Well, I'll be damned,” Sascha uttered. “That old bat was right.”

“Let’s play, Sascha! We can make snowmen—oh, and igloos!”

He would have told her that the odds of snow sticking on sand were slim, and even if it somehow did, there likely wouldn’t have been enough of it for a snowball, (much less a snowman,) but Sascha’s jacket was doing little to fight off the chilly winds as they picked up and it was all he could do to keep his teeth from chattering.

“W-W-Why don't you go into that shop there, p-p-pick out a present?” Sascha inquired with a stutter.

Sarah gasped, staring longingly at the window display as they shuffled past. “A Christmas gift? Really?”

Sascha shuddered from the cold; Sarah interpreted it as a nod.

“Why don't you come with me? Help me pick something out?” The girl cooed, slipping her arm in his and tugging him towards the door.

Sascha shuddered again, this time not from the snow. Frankly, he said, “Sarah, look at me: I wouldn't be caught dead in a Build-A-Bear Workshop.”

Pouting a pout that turned Sascha's insides to goo, she trotted in without him, her hands daintily clutching his debit card.

While Sarah busied herself with the joys of stuffing kitty cats and dressing animals in ridiculously expensive accessories, Sascha stood alone, leaning against a light pole as a fine dusting of snow descended from the sky. Sascha had never seen snow in person in his entire life, and couldn’t help but unearth a shivering hand from the depths of his jacket pockets and catch some as it fell. He was secretly delighted as the captured snowflakes melted against the heat of his skin, a small smile crossing his otherwise gaunt face.

Sascha sighed, eying his “sister” as she dashed from one side of the shop to the other, overjoyed to be touching something that wasn't coated in dust or fished out a trashcan. Watching her, he found her jubilee infectious; it was a force almost strong enough to entice him in after her. Of course, his dignity kept him where he was. It would be a cold day in hell before Sascha Karolek willingly entered a place "where best friends are made."

Then again, snow in Cabal wasn't that far off.

“Oh me gawd,” a cockney-tainted voice cried out, stumbling out of the bar across the road. “Rick, lookie! Et’s bloody snowin’ ou' ‘ere!”

Knowing that voice made Sascha freeze so completely that the snow stopped melting in his hand.

Her hair was still the same purplish-black, but it'd become even scragglier in the months since they'd parted. Her lips were still painted with the blood of her victims, a deep, crimson red, and her eyes were rimmed an arctic, gothsicle black. Her current paramour steadied her as she stumbled; Sascha knew from experience it wouldn't be long before he was replaced. As she stuck a cigarette in her mouth, another man (presumably next in line) offered her a light. They shared some sort of horrible joke, and she snickered her wheezing, hacking laugh.

When she spotted Sascha standing there staring, she stopped mid-laugh, mid-drag of her cigarette.

In that instant, Sarah ran out of the shop, stuffed bear in her arms. She was grinning ear from ear, the epitome of excitement.

“Sascha! Look, Look! I got the last one!” she exclaimed, holding it up for him to see. “Thank you so much for buying it for me! It's the most wonderful Christmas present!”

When Sascha didn’t respond, Sarah’s excitement was dashed and she glumly hooked her arm in his. Just when she was about to say he could take her home, she noticed that he was staring at a woman. “Who’s she, Sascha?”

Sascha heard her, but couldn’t respond, history, flashbacks, and memories whirring so fast in his brain that his basic, instinctual functions could hardly stay on track.

Meeting at a party, her giving him his first cigarette.

Her, laughing at him when he choked on the smoke.

The first time she took him back to her seedy flat.

The glazed, blazed look in her eyes when she fucked him.

Her, smoking a cigarette afterwards.

Her messy hair, her thin, paunchy, unhealthy body sprawled across the bed sheets.

The dust floating in the air made visible and sickening by the sunlight.

Him, sitting naked, hands in his hair, elbows on his knees.

Eyes wide. Staring at the floor.

Her, laughing, saying that he was being pitiful.

Her, saying that she'd popped too many cherries to count.

Hey, kissing him on the top of the head, telling him to lock up after he'd gone.

Cobain on the radio and cocaine coursing through their veins.

Him, doing her bidding, doing whatever she wanted.

Wherever and whenever she demanded it.

Her, teasing him, ragging on him when he put up a fight.

Him, living with her because he couldn’t leave her.

Her, burning him with a cigarette when he pissed her off.

His back, covered with a plethora of little round scars.

His infamous tolerance to liquor, birthed from trying to drink her away.

Trying to drink away her insults, the feeling of being inside her.

Him, thinking there wasn’t enough liquor in the world to make him feel clean.

Nor were there enough showers, both hot and cold.

Him, knowing that he wasn’t clean, but knowing drinking killed the pain.

The epiphany when he realized even drinking had stopped making him forget.

And then he walked in on her and whoeveritwas rolling in the sheets together.

And then he left.

And then he came home, a Deftones album, a bottle of vodka, and pills in hand.

Her, making him want to end it all.

Sascha returned to reality as Liz staggered towards him, her drunken swagger bile in his mouth, her body’s stench of sex and all-nighters burning out the hairs of his nose. Sascha couldn’t remember how his hand had got into Sarah’s, but he was thankful for it. He clung to her and hoped she'd never let him go.

Sarah, on the other hand, was greatly disturbed. Sascha would hardly touch her in public or in private, but now he was squeezing her palm so tightly that both their knuckles had turned white.

“Sascha,” Liz said, smiling. Her breath reeked as she leaned in close. “Et’s been a while.”

“Isn’t Sascha a girl’s name?” said the boyfriend walking behind her.

“'ahah, you’re right. But ain't et rather fittin'? 'e always was such a pussy.”

Sascha stood motionless as Liz reached down and grabbed his crotch, pulling him closer by the body parts she had soiled.

“If you’re ever feelin' lonely, Sascha-baby, you know where to find me.”

Her moans, her groans, her angry tones, all ringing in cacophonous harmony at once. Sascha was sure he'd faint from the sheer terror seizing in his gut.

Suddenly, Sarah sprang forward and shoved Liz away, standing in-between the two, her eyebrows all furrowed and her face all red and flushed from her pure, unsullied style of anger. “Who the heck do you think you are?”

Liz looked Sarah over and deemed her laughable, glancing back up at Sascha with a dirty grin. “Who's this lil tart? Your sista'?”

“I’m his girlfriend, you sick, twisted...!” Sarah trailed off, green around the edges. With all her red anger and green disgust, she could have been marketed at a Christmas decoration.

Sascha could do nothing but look on, too horrified to speak.

“Who taught you to treat people that way?”

“Oh, so you’re into younger girls now, are you?” Liz was angry, Sascha could tell. Liz’s one weakness was in the fact she was getting older every day, and her age and lifestyle were starting to show. “Are you some kinda pedophile, Sascha?”

“Are you some kind of pedophile?” Sarah shot back. “Sascha is barely seventeen! Where do you get off touching him like that, you creep!”

Liz stood there, staring. Sascha wondered if she had ever cared (or even noticed) that when she'd first had her way with him, he was barely out of middle school.

“And what are you, thirty? Forty?” Sarah accused. A demon crossed Liz’s face, her pride and vanity fueled by the liquor combusting in her eyes.

“Cunt, I'll tear you apart!” Liz screeched, lunging. Sarah stood still, frozen and frightened. Sascha, finding his will to move again, jumped in front of Sarah and shielded her from Liz’s fury. Angrily, he pushed the deranged drunk back.

“Don’t you touch her!” Sascha shouted. “Touch her and I nark!”

“What do you mean?” Liz hissed. The list of things Sascha knew that could be detrimental to her status as a free citizen was expansive, to say the least.

Sascha leaned in close, brushing his lips against her ear. “Do you want to be a sex offender?”

Liz stared into his crisp, blue eyes, hating him as he pulled away.

Sascha relished every second of it.

“Go put your face on, Liz. Your wrinkles are showing.”

“We’re leaving,” Liz announced, turning on heel and stomping away.

“But what about—” one of her men said.

“I said we’re leaving!” she cried.

Sascha watched her go, and hoped it would be the last time he'd have the opportunity to check out her plump behind.

Sarah tisked, pursing her lips. “Some people.”

Sascha glanced at her, spying her youthfulness as she stood, hands on her hips and tiny pink tongue taunting the de-fanged Medusa as she retreated.

“Sarah?” Sascha asked.

“Yeah?” the girl asked as she turned towards him. Sascha didn't respond; instead, he grabbed her and squeezed the life out of her.

Sarah was so stunned she couldn't breathe.

“Sascha...?” she didn't know what to do beside stand there and take it.

After a moment, Sascha released her, and continued towards the outskirts.

“Aren't you taking me

---

home?” Sarah inquired after she had awakened from her daze.

Sascha turned, and his look said, “Uh, duh?”

“Isn't home that way?” Sarah pointed out, pointing behind her.

Sascha adjusted the grocery sack in his arms and sighed. This time, his look said, “Isn't it obvious?”

The grin that crossed her face as she began to understand warmed Sascha's frozen heart.

“You mean I can stay?”

She was, quite literally, a kid on Christmas.

Sascha rolled his eyes and turned towards home, unable to disguise the grin twisting his face with a scowl.

Feeling lighter than air, Sarah bounded down the sidewalk and leaped onto Sascha's back, wrapping her puff-clad arms around his scrawny neck. Sascha's knees buckled beneath her weight, but he managed to remain standing.

“You're going to crush me,” he said, choked.

“Do you think we can talk Tanaka into making dinner?” she wondered absently, ignoring him.

“Good luck talking him into anything,” Sascha said as he gently shrugged her off. “I haven't even heard the man talk.”

---

Commentary:

Honestly, I'm getting the vibe this doesn't make a lot of sense. There were some scenes I had planned to happen before, including a rather incestual seduction scene, but I decided to drop them until I do the rewrite. They currently don't fit very well. Also, sorry this took so long. This is my rather untriumphant return to writing, because my laptop broke and I've been without medium for quite some time. I salvaged my work and have been working on it during free time at school. Perhaps some congrats on being editor of he school paper are in order, yeah?

-Skylar Alexander