seaside 01
“In no family or culture is it tradition to stop and get an ice-cream every time you pass an ice-cream van.”
“But in miiiine it is,” you say, whining playfully as you stare longingly at the third Mr Whippy we’ve passed. Beside us the sand stretches on, circling lazily around a broad bay, terminating in distant headlands. “Don’t you want to watch me eat ice-cream? I know you like it.”
My arm is linked in yours so you feel me stiffen. I turn to look at you. Sunglasses would dull the edge of your devilish grin if twin fangs didn’t amp up the effect a hundredfold. You hear a slight sigh from me.
So we’re walking along, hand in hand, you taking long, victorious licks of your ice-cream and me stealing glances when I can overcome my repressed nature. You’re a vision in floaty, dark blue maxi dress and a wide-brimmed hat you wore because I jokingly picked it out for you.
With barely any effort you thoroughly alter the lives of an oncoming couple out walking their dog. I’m not sure if you mean to make eye contact with the woman mid-lick. She gets the full force of your gaze, parted lips and long, coral tongue, and stops cold like she walked into a wall. Her partner, holding her hand, is physically halted on the promenade, and looks curiously at her, then to us.
We’ve time as we stroll past for you to take one more lick. Your face is casual but your eyes remain glued on hers until we’re basically past them.
We walk on. Once out of earshot I start giggling. “I’ve never seen anyone convert someone to a lesbian before. Nor so quickly.”
“I want to have her,” you say, no longer the slightest bit casual. Something in you responds to those who have a touch of prey in them. God knows I know that’s true. “Tonight.”
I nod, and get out my phone to take a couple of notes. This isn’t the first time I’ve spared you the effort of tracking down some morsel who caught your eye. Once done I nod towards a cafe. “Mind if we sit? I could murder a coffee.”
“Mm,” you agree, taking a solid bite out of your wafer cone. You’re looking back along the promenade.
In the cafe you’re distant. Distracted, and not by the prospect of a meal. While Freya was coursing through your veins and cuddling you around your middle you seemed vigorous and bright, but the last few days something seems to be on your mind.
I watch you watch the clouds and think how little I know about you. By some unspoken agreement even how you occupy your days is a mystery to me. Do you work? Do you perform Eldrich rituals all day? Do you busk? I know you’re more than human. No earthly endeavour would seem worthy for you.
But I know that what you do is draining. It’s why I brought you out here. You need a break, or the weight of the world seems to settle about your shoulders.
You come back from wherever you’ve been to find me watching you. I give you a smile, but you just continue looking. Eventually you articulate something that’s clearly been on your mind.
“Do you want me to make you like I am?”
The question comes out of nowhere. Within half an hour you’ve blown two people’s minds: you can see me physically reel from the question.
“You can do that?”
“I think so. I’d… like to have you around longer.”
I reach for your hand across the little tin table and give it a squeeze. But it’s my turn to be quiet for a little while.
“… I don’t think I can.”
You nod as if checking off an expected outcome. “Why not?”
“I’m not… I couldn’t do what you do. Not because it’s a terrible thing!” Seeing the beginnings of hurt in your eyes rips me apart and I rush to clarify myself. “No, I will put my life behind you and what you do. But I can’t picture myself doing… I mean, I’m no predator.”
“But you just spent ten minutes tracking down a woman for me to devour!” Your voice is a little loud and I glance at an old man on a nearby table. He didn’t seem to hear us, or at least didn’t react. “You’ll maybe even watch! What’s the difference?”
I shrug, momentarily lost for words. Your mouth twists as you settle back into your chair, which tinnily clanks on the uneven flagstones.
“You’re my predator,” I say, eventually.
Bitterness runs through your words. “So I’m the monster.”
“No! No, not one bit. You’re… A force of fucking nature. You’re a goddess, and not an airy-fairy wisdom deity or whatever.” Now it’s my turn to become more animated. The old man is definitely looking up from his newspaper. “You’re the fucking lightning that spares a hundred people in the field but immolates one. You’re the storm that makes the ship realise how small it is in the middle of the sea. You’re what’s real, and your desires are natural fucking law.” I seem to become aware that I was basically shouting at the person I am calling my goddess and sit back a little in my chair, though my face retains its brow-knitted intensity. “I’m not like that. I’m no… god. But I’ll be your priest.”
Your posture is a little hard to read after my outburst. You look unsure of how to take what I just said, though you probably believe I meant it. “But aren’t you worried the lightning will strike you?” In a smaller voice, you follow it with, “I don’t want to be alone.”
I seem indeed to be struck. Your words make my shoulders crumple forwards, conciliatory where I was strident. My hand reaches for yours again, takes it and squeezes it tight. “Then I’d better be always delightful and entertaining and electrically non-conductive, hadn’t I?”
You flash me a weak smile. You will have to content yourself with the passion of my conviction, because there will never come a day that you understand why I feel the way I feel. And maybe that is okay.
“So I’m your goddess?”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” I say, grinning. “And you’re not just my goddess, you’re also my Raven. My beautiful, confusing, mysterious, playful, knackered, intense, caring, intelligent Raven.”
“You talk a lot,” you say. But you squeeze my hand back, so all is right with the world.
We take a moment of calm. The tide is coming in and clouds froth behind one of the headlands. Tonight will likely be moonless, starless. If the details I found for the woman you picked are correct, then for at least one inhabitant of the seaside town, the night will be pitch black and endless.
Before then, we have a little time. I look back to you, eyes flashing with a mirror of the intensity in yours when you chose tonight’s meal. I am oblivious to the similarity.
“Come on, let’s go back to the hotel. I want to worship my goddess. There’s something I want to do to you. Do you trust me?