I saw her the first time in the snow.
She was walking down the main street, grey coat and black wide brimmed hat, boots covered with the slush of the sidewalk. Tiny in that great grey coat, but moving like a shadow under the streetlights, dancing to her own music. Making patterns of steps as intricate as weaving, she passed out of my sight.
Months later again, I walked the night streets aimlessly, crying over the breakup with my boyfriend until I reached the place where the junkies and the hookers hang out and began to turn back. Then I saw her, moving again. Black coat sweeping the air behind her, black plumed hat. Metal tipped pointed boots.
They made way for her like the rabble before a queen. It is the walk that tells me who she is, swift dancing. A man detached himself from the crowd of youths and put himself in her path. She stopped. I wanted to run to her, to protect her, but she danced around him. He stared sightless at the place she had been and by the time he recovered she was gone. I didn't see where she went either.
I saw her again last week.
She was in black again, the long graceful plume on her hat dangling this way and that drew my eye, and stopped. She was facing a huge man at least three times her size. They spoke, his arms gesticulated and pointed and they began to walk down the street. Lights flashing around me cars coming thru. When they had passed, I hurried to catch up. I saw his great over coated figure follow her into an alley. I cursed, tears in my eyes, trying to gear up the strength to go rescue her. but a few moments longer and she came out alone. She shook herself like a wet cat and stopped stone still when saw me standing there.
Our eyes met, a black flash and then she turned away to the other end of the street and vanished. Should I stroll to that alley and open that gate, I wondered? My feet crept forward to the door. The ground was dark and wet under my boots. I took my flashlight out. The wet was red. My light followed the trail to where he sat limp in the great stain, his shirt and pants open to reveal...wetness, yellow and purple and much red. I fled.
I want to see her again.
I wandered the city today under the over cast sky. The market, the stores, the parks. It's cold now, bone chilling cold. The snow is deep and another storm is coming in. Dusk comes down on the night streets with the shimmering flakes, light pollution like the glittering false gold of the human dream. She must know that I had seen her. From downtown to the porno district to the coffeehouses I went, searching and so afraid to find.
She was sitting on the kiosk over the train station as I came out, feet swinging over the edge as if waiting for me. Snow lingering like lace over the shoulders of the swinging black leather coat. Black mirrored glasses reflected twin crowds back at themselves. And in the center, my own round pale face.
She leapt down and danced away. I don't have her skill and I feared losing her, almost panicked. She turned down a residential street, where there were no pedestrians passing great Victorian houses with fanlights and bay windows. I followed, I had no choice any more. Her shadow danced on the brick walkways leading me like a leash and I followed.
I heard the jingling of keys.
A small iron gate in a brick wall was ajar, the yard behind it wafted lavender and rose even in the snow. I saw her silhouetted in the light of the doorway for a moment, the she moves aside. Inviting? The shaft of gold light told me the door was left ajar. I followed her inside. Shutting the door behind me. The hallway was warm and dark and smelled of sandalwood, the furniture was old an heavy. Her wide brimmed hat and coat hung on the rack, ice sliding to the floor. I left my own coat there. My boots I unlaced and left on the floor underneath
I saw her in the parlor, she wore black jeans and a simple sweater, pouring a green liquor from a decanter on the sideboard into a goblet. A golden spoon balanced on the top. I made my way across the soft carpeted floor, feeling like a kitten in a lion's den. She was waiting, not speaking. I knelt at her feet, her tiny boots steel toed and filigreed to the laces, and looked up to catch sight of myself in her twin mirrored eyes.
"Why?" Her voice was no louder than the thought.
"I want you - I love you-" I stutter.
"Love me? You don't even know me." She sipped from her goblet. Her low voice like bottomless velvet.
"I want to know you." I whispered.
"You want, you want." she mocked looking at the window. "And what if, I, want?".
"I - I'll give it to you."
"Anything?"
"Yes."
"Your heart, your soul, your blood?" she turned away, sipping.
In my mind I saw the man in the alley, organs, intestines and blood spread out on the ground. My belly cringed but it was a hunger. My spine ran with ice.
"Yes."
She reached over and pulled a cigarette from her box, lighting it . Then lay back across her couch. The air was filled with the smell of cloves. Her right leg hung over the arm of the chair, swinging idly into space
"Do you care what I do to you?" she asked, almost ritually.
