Author’s note: I apologize for the sudden change in rating, but I can’t in good conscience continue with the adult language and some of the other things I’ll be introducing and still call this PG-13. If you’ve been reading and haven’t been too offended by the violence / language and adult content to date, then it’s still safe to continue, I just wanted there to be no mistaking that I’m not going to be editing things any more for R rated content as it now begins to add to the story.
Memories - Act 1
Central Park, New York City, June 11, 1984
He walked down the twilit pavement faster than usual. His steps were quick and impatient. The sun was going down. He didn’t care. He’d walk all night if that was what it took. He needed to clear his head.
It was warm, even for June, and he pulled his grey suit jacket off and folded it over one arm. He would need to stop eventually, he knew. He couldn’t run forever. He was just so damned frustrated. First the school thing, now this... Decisions were being made without him — not good decisions, either. He was losing control.
He sat down on a nearby bench, glancing over to the small creek which wound its way beside the path. In the darkening evening, the water was black, its sounds emanating from what seemed like a dark ravine. It would look much happier in the sunlight, he knew. Night changed things, showed things for what they really were. Empty spaces, devoid of happiness or opportunity, in darkness became voids of fear, as they should be. Faces became masks of shadow. Words became echoes and eyes became pits.
With dark thoughts circling in his head, he followed the water’s course upstream to where it disappeared under a small bridge. With a struggling buzz, then a warm hum, lamps snapped to life, lighting the path up which he had walked. The lights passed him, however, leaving his little bench in an island of shadow, and continued along the path ahead of him. The water’s surface now glinted with the pale light as the trail of lamps continued to where the path turned and crossed the river.
His gaze followed it, as if the lights were urging him to continue, to stray farther into the lonely night. Then with a hesitant flicker, the lamp on the bridge itself came to life, catching the figure standing there in a cone of light.
His eyes locked in the direction of the bridge and he stood, slowly, unsure of his own intentions. Soon he was walking towards her, sure that he was just walking father from home. The lights continued on down the path past the bridge, but he stopped at the small railing over the water and leaned against it, looking out as the water flowed from under them both.
They both stood for several minutes, enjoying the warmth of the night breeze and the gentle sounds of the water beneath them. Finally she spoke up and he turned to listen.
“I like standing on this side of the bridge,” she said quietly. Her voice was smooth and yet strong. “I like watching the water flowing away from me. I know that it can see where it’s going.”
He wasn’t looking at the water any more. As she stared contemplatively at the little creek, he committed every detail of her perfect form to memory. She was a little shorter than him, dirty blond hair hanging about her shoulders in a way which said she cared little for what people thought of her. From her shoulders down she seemed to be blanketed in a black leather jacket which was at least a size too big for her. Her jacket being open at the front, he could see her tight, threadbare T-shirt taut between her young breasts. He glanced back up to her face and judged her to be in her early twenties.
He recalled with regret what he had been doing when girls like her had been chasing after him. Studying. Law school had been stifling and he had managed only the occasional tryst before graduation. Then he had met her and he had made a leap of faith. The woman who became his wife. The mother of his child. She was at home right now. And he was not.
“Does it care where it’s going?” he asked as the girl looked down at the water. He sank a little lower between his shoulder and let her turn and examine him. She was similarly silent for a moment before she slid a little closer to him along the railing and the trace of a smile appeared on her lovely face.
“It doesn’t care where,” she answered playfully, but certain of the truth of her words, “it just needs to know.”
Logan let the smile onto his own face. “Well, what about down there,” he pointed farther down the river to where it bent out of site. “How does it know where that goes?”
The girl considered this, then shrugged slightly. “Sometimes it just has to make a leap of faith.”
Logan leaned into her a little, enjoying the feel of the dangerous closeness of a stranger. “But leaping,” he said carefully, “always ends with falling.”
The girl nodded very slowly. As they both watched the water round the bend in the creek he sensed she knew he was right — knew it more truly than he could ever imagine. And for the first time he felt something. In the silence of that night he felt something.
Behind her strong eyes — her strong voice, behind the overpowering strength she wrapped around her like the jacket, an injury, a wound lay open, slowly filling with tears. A frown of empathy creased Logan’s face and he reached his arm around her shoulders and held her close.
She didn’t pull away or protest in any way, as a part of him still expected her to do. She merely laid her cheek on his chest and continued to gaze at the water carrying their lives away. His touch was no more comforting than the touch of a tombstone, but he was there and he, like a tombstone, had a purpose to serve.
Niki gently relaxed into the man’s arms, letting him take the weight off her tired muscles. She hadn’t felt warmth in the embrace of a man since... not since she had found her destiny. Since her destiny had found her. Found, claimed and enslaved her to do its bidding. Even the water, flowing along a narrow channel to be unavoidably swallowed by the sea, had more freedom than she.
He would probably leave her, the young Slayer thought, as everything else she had loved had left her. But not right now. Right now he was holding her and his strength was supporting her, his smell was surrounding her, his voice was calming her. His lips...
Park Avenue, New York City, March 16, 1988
Niki gasped as Logan’s hands moved over her, his crushing grip, his burning lips. In the dim light cast into her room by the moon, she saw his body over hers. His skin, silver in the moonlight, glistening with sweat. He moved down her body, trailing kisses and hot caresses.
His lips moved down from her now aching breasts to linger at her taut belly. Her fingers combed through his sweat-matted hair, urging his head lower as her breath came out as low moans. Fuck. It was like a drug. The thought was immediately driven from her mind as his breath tickled her inner thighs. She sucked in a breath as he planted a gentle kiss on her aching clit. His lips began to move, kissing in circles, his tongue flicking here and there — he always knew where.
Niki groaned as he finally drew her orgasm from her. In a flash the cool spring air was washing over her again. Her eyes opened and she saw him kneeling over her panting body. He came down hard onto her, thrusting into her, holding nothing back. She wasn’t some delicate flower. She could rip him to pieces and they both knew it. But now it was his turn to split her in half.
He lay down over her, holding her wrists hard against the bed, his head ducking down to take her breath away. Always he pounded into her, feeding something he couldn’t name. Feeling what he wouldn’t name.
They came together, as he always intended, their lips parting for the final thrust as she groaned and he sighed. He gave into her for several more heartbeats, finally collapsing down on the sweat-soaked sheets next to her naked form. His fingers slid up her slick stomach, up and down as her hand found his and interlocked with it.
Their breathing slowly smoothed out and she finally drifted off to sleep in the silver sheen of the moonlight.
As soon as she stopped guiding his caressing hand, Logan extricated himself from her soft flesh and rolled out of her bed. He pulled on his clothes and padded quietly to the kitchen where he found his khaki jacket. He folded it over his arm and turned to the fridge.
He stared at the blank whiteboard for what seemed like an eternity. I love you? He knew she didn’t love him. Call me? She wouldn’t and he didn’t want her to — especially not at his house. You were a damn good lay? True, at least.
Finally, he pulled the cap from the marker and scribbled his words to her in sloppy longhand. In the quiet of the night and still smelling like mixed sweat, he slipped out of her apartment for the last time.
Niki awoke without a sound, without a word. She swallowed when she felt the emptiness of the bed next to her.
Standing up into the column of sunlight pouring into her room from the window, she wandered into the kitchen and found her apartment empty. She rubbed her eyes and moved towards the coffee pot. She emptied its cold contents into the sink and swirled hot water around, her eyes drifting over to the whiteboard.
Scrawled in Logan’s cursive writing, the message was simple and in all ways true. Niki couldn’t blame him any more than she could blame herself.
I can’t do this anymore. Goodbye.
That wasn’t all of it, thought. Beneath, in Niki’s own messy printing, another message took hold of her heart; simple, and hauntingly true.
You have been deceived.
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