Metro

Chapter 5: Cost

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.
- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

It's one of those things you don't think about. He's kneeling next to her bed, memorizing the rhythm of her breathing as she sleeps. Her delicate chest rises and falls—staccato beats slurred together by an exhalation. His eyes graze over her slumbering figure, lingering on the mass of gold curls atop her head. It looks almost paternal from a distance.

Almost.

He lifts a hand to caress her angelic face, petting his thumb across her cheek. "Baby, baby," he whispers. His eyes flicker towards the glaring digital green numbers of the clock, the colon flashing off each second. 1:07 AM.

Slowly peeling the blanket off of her body, he begins sweating profusely. He slides her silk nightgown up, revealing creamy legs untouched by cellulite and age. She is so close to perfection. If only...

He marvels at her waif-like beauty, her transcendental innocence. Careful not to break her, he lays a hand upon her thigh. His eyes grow more bloodshot with every move, every step in this twisted dance, but he knows he's past the point of no return.

She stirs in her sleep, humming out a brief sleep sound. His fingers freeze on their migration upward, heartbeat doubling. Then he remembers.

The drugs. She won't be waking up anytime soon.

He waits a few minutes, calming his heart, before proceeding.

It is done.

He buckles his belt, and then covers her with the blanket again, making sure to pull it well over her shoulders to keep her warm. He pushes back her curls from her forehead with one hand, and plants one, solitary kiss on an eyelid.

When he pulls back, he realizes that he's been crying. He tries to wipe away the tears that fell on her face but is afraid of marring or scratching her beauty. Instead, he backs away from her.

The moonlight is streaming through the window at the perfect compromise between day and night, illuminating her face. It looks as if she has a halo—angel on earth, seraphim of dreams. His tears glisten on her cheek, sliding down onto the cotton of the pillowcase.

His angel is crying.

He is crying, as well, but he wishes he weren't. Choking back a sob, he softly closes her door, shutting himself off from her pink, Hello Kitty-themed room. He wishes it were as simple as that. He wishes it were as simple a matter of shutting off a part of himself. A part so insane and disordered, a side so obscene and vulgar, he cries every night after the deed.

Dragging himself to the bathroom, he closes the door tightly and jumps into the shower, scalding his skin and scrubbing every follicle away.

"Damn you," he mutters to himself, "Goddamn you." A rage barely contained bubbles over, then down the shower drain. When he emerges, he is listless, crawling into his bed for what seems like mere moments before his alarm clock awakens him, the incessant beeping whipping him into submission with its chains of sound.

He drags himself to his twelve-year-old daughter's room and knocks on the door. "Haylie! Get up! It's time for school!" After a few short pauses, he pushes the door open to find Haylie still conked out cold.

That's the trouble with those drugs—makes it impossible to wake people up afterwards.

He gently shakes her awake. "Haylie, get up... time to go to school!"

"Mmph," she responds, throwing her blanket further over her head, unexplainably tired.

"Come on. You don't want to be late today; it's picture day!"

She throws open her covers, eyes wide. "What? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Leaping from her comfortable abode, she scrambles to assemble an outfit and brush her hair at the same time.

He cracks a small smile to himself as he leaves Haylie to her own devices. It's another day for him at court, prosecuting an alleged child molester. Stepping into his snappiest Giorgio Armani suit, he jogs down the stairs to pour some cereal for his daughter. She stumbles in minutes later, wearing the generic 7th grade attire of Abercrombie.

"Morning!" She greets cheerily before digging into her Honey Nut Cheerios with gusto.

"Good morning, young lady." He glances at his Rolex wristwatch for a second. "You're a bit late today, so hurry up. We need to leave in ten minutes."

"Mmkay," she hums in assent.

Ten minutes later, they load into the shiny BMW, pulling out of their shiny driveway of their shiny house in their shiny life. Adjusting the rearview mirror a bit, he catches the eyes of Haylie and smiles into the mirror. Her aqua eyes smile back.

"Daddy, you know I get to drive in a few years, right?"

"Is that right? Everyone better get off the road, then!"

"Haha, very funny." She makes a face. "I've already decided what kind of car I want."

"So soon? What makes you think I'm even going to get you a car?"

"Because everyone gets a car when they turn sixteen, duh. Jessica's brother got a Mercedes for his sixteenth birthday last week, and she says she'll be getting one, too."

"Wow. You kids are really getting spoiled these days."

"Nuh-uh! All I want is an Acura. That's not spoiled."

"I'll think about it." He purses his lips, pulling into the school driveway. "That's still a couple of years off."

"Better to start planning early!" She hops out of the car, hauling her backpack onto her shoulders. Slamming the door, she walks off to a group of giggling girls that look exactly like one another. Clones with the same raiment, same side-swept bangs, same Ugg boots.

As her figure is engulfed by the tumor of look-alikes, he is hit with overpowering shame. What was wrong with him? His own daughter, for crying out loud. He knew he was stressed and frustrated, but he never realized to what extent—until last night. The memory of what he'd done had a wanton effect, shocking and shaming him further.

The blare of a car horn thrusts him out of his reverie, and he shifts into drive to get to the train station.

Each morning is an endless connection of train stations to Metro platforms and back again. God knows that he's rich enough to get a driver, but he'd rather not. He considers himself too much of a fraud in the world of affluent politicians and CEOs to embrace his upper-class status fully. At least, he rationalizes, I'm with my type of people on the subway—hippies, drunks, psychopaths.

He sits carefully on a seat, balancing his briefcase precariously next to him, watching the freak show procession. A disheveled, unshaven hobo climbs through the doors, a cardboard sign around his neck stating that he will work for food. A disgruntled teenager slouches in his seat, the music—if you could call it music—from his iPod spilling over into everyone else's eardrums. A single mother tugs at her young child's hand, while balancing another on a practiced hip. A woman who was once beautiful, now caked in make-up in an attempt to capsulate her past, leers at him licentiously. He looks away hastily, squeezing away the past night's indecency from his mind.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thinks to himself, I need to stop thinking about it.

He plucks his briefcase up from beside him and snaps it open, desperate to find something else to focus on. The uncouth of the Metro passengers was anything but helpful in warding off his dangerous thoughts.

State of New York v. Crinnion read the cover page of the case packet. He read it over a couple of times, unwilling to turn the page, knowing what followed. Charge 1: Statutory rape. Charge 2: Sexual abuse of a minor. Charge 3: Sexual assault. And on and on... he should know; he wrote out the charges himself.

Unsure of what to make of it all, he stuffs the packet back into his briefcase and stands up to get off at his stop. After a final cursory glance around (the once-beautiful woman was still making lewd eye contact with him), he steps away from the world of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll and into the, perhaps more dangerous, world of crime and punishment in New York City.

"Thank God you're here," Mrs. Bates, his secretary, addresses to him in a flustered tone upon his arrival on the 54th floor. "The phone's been ringing off the hook for you! The trial has been moved up an hour—something about the judge having a lunch appointment."

"Damn," he breathes out through his teeth. "Do you have Wilkins' deposition?"

"Right here." She hands him a binder teeming with paper and dividers.

He grabs it roughly from her, muttering a half-hearted, "Thanks," before shutting his office door with his foot.

Throwing down the binder onto his desk, he collapses onto his plush, leather executive chair, swiveling around to face the glass paneling of a wall, overlooking the bustling streets of the city below. He doesn't want to read the tedious deposition, nor even think about anything related to either sex or minors. Sex with minors, though? Too taboo and frightening to even consider.

He settles down enough to flip through the binder insincerely, every so often vaulting a nervous glance at the phone. Would Child Protective Services call? Would Haylie somehow inexplicably know what he'd done to her? Would anyone know?

The phone rings, and he shudders involuntarily before lifting it off its cradle.

"Yeah?" Years of attorney work have taught him well in the ways of masking pure terror.

"The church called. They wanted to know if they could renew the gravetending fee." Mrs. Bates' voice had never brought so much relief before.

"Um, what?" Church... grave... what?

"You know, for your wife?"

"Oh." He pauses. "That's right. Yeah, sure."

"Is this a bad time?"

Images of Haylie with her nightgown hitched above levels of decency emerge in his mind. "Kind of."

"Okay. Well, you're expected at court in an hour. Get ready." She hangs up.

Remembering his promise to his dying wife that he would take care of their child, he shuts his eyes tightly. "Fuck," he whispers to himself, "I don't deserve to take care of her tombstone, much less Haylie."

One question echoes in the tissue of his conscious: why? But how would he know why? He doesn't understand any of his emotions—anger, sadness, love, lust. But he's not a bad person. He donates to charities, goes to all of Haylie's activities, and does his best to contribute to society. Why would a man of his stature commit the unthinkable, then? He can't quite comprehend the reason himself. He only knows that when the moon is high in the sky and the midnight air reverberates with songs of teenage glory, he can't help but project his desire onto the only female he has in his life.

He wouldn't admit it to any of his colleagues, but he hasn't gotten laid since three years past. Even then, it was only pity sex. He'd thought it would be okay, thought that he'd hold up all right. All his thoughts and presumptions flew out the window last night, when the monster he'd kept locked up broke its chains and was free to roam every crevice of his viscous mind.

A knock on the door. "Your driver is here, sir. You need to get down."

He shakes his head. "Thank you, Ilene. Tell them I'll be right down." He gathers up his papers, picks up his coat, and walks out of his office, leaving his dark thoughts behind.

Hours later, he finds himself sitting at the bar, downing vodka like it was water. The day at trial was torturous. The victim, an eight-year-old girl with bright blue eyes and brown pigtails, recounted her sickening sexual encounters with her stepfather. There had been not a single mind that was not outraged—good for him, he supposes, since that meant a conviction is almost certain. Bad for him, he supposes, since that meant he could be the next disgusting human being on trial.

It's nearly three in the morning, and he needs to get home. He trips over his own two feet as he pushes open the heavy double doors, spilling onto the street. That's when he sees her.

Redemption. Purgatory. Whatever the fuck you want to call it.

Her face possesses the apathetic look of those who gave up on life far too young and far too quickly. A cigarette dangles cheaply from her mouth, in the most cliché imitation of film noir. She isn't beautiful, but it isn't for lack of trying—her thickly lined eyes and heavily rouged cheeks attest to that. She gives him a quick glance and then dismisses him just as quickly, blowing a ring of smoke from her darkly painted lips.

He keeps staring at her.

She's wearing heels that are too high with a hemline to match. Trashy—that would be the only word to desribe it. Yet, there's a certain allure in the jut of her hip, the bat of her eye. It's the same allure that drives him to Haylie. To anyone.

Even though she's already written him off, he approaches her direction, a little unsteady thanks to the alcohol. She becomes more interested in him as he draws closer, closer. She didn't think that he was a potential customer—too clean-cut, too wholesome, too fucking nice. But the world is prone to unleashing surprises.

He's finally within four feet of her and clears his throat for her attention, although she's already given that to him a while ago. "I've never done this before…"

She nods at him in acquiesence, knowing exactly what he's going to ask before he utters the words that simultaneously damn him and save him.

"How much?"