Page 25 of Below the Shadow of the City
CHAPTER 25
H is knot eventually shrinks enough for him to pull it from me with a pop. When his cock slides out, the mess of our tryst trickles between my thighs. I know I have to clean myself off, but Maddox wraps his arms around me and pulls himself close to my neck. Maddox’s teeth graze my skin in soft nibbles, satisfied moans and purrs vibrate against me. Now, after what has felt like an eternity, I turn to face him. He doesn’t seem to care to stop, tasting my sweaty, salty skin with fervor.
I track my hands across his body, smoothing down his rumpled fur. He’s sweaty too, collectively we’re warm and covered in fluids that under any other circumstance would make me completely appalled at the state of our bodies.
Maddox parts from my lips and gazes at me through heavily hooded eyes. “You know, I didn’t see you that first night we spoke.” The comment comes out of the blue, it breaks the quiet between us that we’d spent basking in the presence of one another. “I’d actually told myself not to look at you, so I wouldn’t find myself tempted. I’d obviously never dated a human before, and I actually worried that if I met one something… wrong …would overtake me.” I nod sl owly, comforted that we’d had the shared experience of being mysterious strangers that night. It feels like a lifetime ago, now.
“It wasn’t until you brought me the cookies and gave me your number that I’d looked you up.” He continues. “There aren’t many Sigrids in Brooklyn, you know. And I was so angry at myself that I did because you stopped me in my tracks. You were so beautiful.”
“You’re being way too flattering, I'm nothing special—” he raises a hand to shut me up.
“I know you’ll deflect and claim it’s because I hadn’t met a human woman before, but I’d seen plenty of TV shows and movies. I have a ‘type’ by nature of existing alongside your world my entire life. You shattered my expectations of what a woman could be. What one could do to me. Some days I truly understand why my ancestors centuries ago wanted to keep women like you locked in towers, as barbaric as it was. They wanted to keep them so nobody else could have them. I want to keep you, Sigrid. I want you to be mine forever.”
“Mine” tastes a little sweeter now when he says it. I envision what being his would look like. It would be more nights in his bed, mornings in his kitchen, kissing on the couch, him beside me and inside me. His scent would never fade from me, his touch wouldn’t haunt me like a phantom. Everything that I lie awake thinking about on nights we’re apart would be well within reach.
It’s freeing, but claustrophobic, and my skin twitches with something I still haven’t figured out. Could this be what true love feels like?
“I want you to keep me,” I say quietly. His thumb hooks under my chin and he pulls my face towards his. My lips are swollen from kissing, and I probably am going to get rug burn from all this friction. None of that matters.
“You know, the pie is probably cool enough now,” I say after gently pulling away from him .
“Right, of course,” Maddox chuckles. “I get an appetizer, main course, and dessert tonight.” I hop from the bed and gather my clothes I’d tossed on the floor and he follows me out into the kitchen.
We eat in near silence, save for happy noises coming from Maddox as he eats, and eats. Half the pie is decimated in the time it takes for me to finish my slice. I haven’t had to bring leftovers to work because they disappear in less than a day.
“I have an idea,” I set my fork down on my plate. In the quiet, I’ve scribbled some notes to make improvements to the recipe. Maddox, unsurprisingly, had zero criticism, though I think he may have eaten his portion too quickly to even properly taste it.
He sets down his own fork, two thirds of the way through his fourth slice, “go on.”
“It sounds a little crazy, but do you want to go out? Above ground? See the city? We could?—”
He raises a palm to cut me off. “Sigrid, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ve gone up there but I’ve never traveled that far above ground or gone somewhere so public.”
“It’s late, we can walk through alleyways, you’re used to alleyways. And it’s New York, people are unfazed by the unusual. If anyone spots you, you’d probably be, like, the fourth strangest thing they’d seen today.”
“Only fourth?” He asks with cheeky curiosity.
“I once saw a man on the subway sharing his fries with three rats. THREE. You’re more or less boring compared to that.”
I watch him ruminate on the idea for a few moments. “I don’t know,” he lowers his head. I see for the first time that he might hold some shame regarding what he is.
“Please? For me?” I want to bridge the gap between our worlds. Just once.
His eyes meet mine and he nods and suddenly it’s one in the morning and we’re walking towards Domino Park. He shortens his stride to keep pace with me, I’m holding his hand and pulling him down side streets and alleyways. I know he’s snuck above ground multiple times, I’d seen him up here, but he’s always moved in the shadows. He hasn’t stopped to take in this world he’s lived below his whole life.
Music spills out from basement bars, and we stop for a moment to listen. I glance over at him and see he’s nodding his head to the beat. Every neon sign flickering on a bar or string of Christmas lights wrapped around a brownstone makes his blue eyes sparkle. He’s so beautiful up here, wind blowing his fur and mane around. We don’t speak, we don’t necessarily need to. I tug on his hand and continue to lead.
We reach the park, there are a few people milling about. They keep to themselves as New Yorkers do. Before we round the corner and walk down to the waterfront I turn to him, “you should cover your eyes, I want to surprise you.”
He cocks his head to the side and raises a brow. I lift his hands to cover his eyes and rise up on my tiptoes and plant a kiss. He smiles and bites his lip, “lead the way, then.”
I wrap myself around his arm and walk him down the steps. New York’s skyline spreads out before us, skyscrapers dotted with yellow lights twinkle in their reflections on the water. I’ve seen this view dozens of times in the years I’ve lived here, never once have I grown tired of it. When New Yorkers say this is the greatest city in the world, this exact view is one of the reasons why.
“Okay, now,” I say, a thrum of excitement courses through me. He obliges, and is confronted with the view once he lowers his hands. For a moment, he’s completely silent, I worry that this isn’t what he’d expected. As I watch him as his mouth slowly opens, aghast with amazement.
He turns and looks at me as though I’m the source of magic myself. His eyes are damp, the realization hits that he’s never allowed himself to be seen above ground here. All his life this world I’ve taken for granted has existed and he’s never been able to participate in it fully.
“I’ve never seen the lights of Manhattan like this before,” He says quietly. “This is far more incredible than when I’ve driven through it.”
A chilly breeze rubs my nose raw and I settle deeper into Maddox’s embrace. He’s wearing a black hoodie, stretched tightly over his broad back and thick biceps. I’ve asked him too many times since we got to street level if he’s cold, and every time he’s made a joke about his built in winter coat. I didn’t believe him until he pulled me under his arm and wrapped it over my shoulder. The man is a veritable furnace. Being near him makes me no longer regret wearing my coat that was designed more for fashion over function.
I watch the way the moon shines on his horns, barely peeking out beneath his hood, and I wish to the universe that he didn’t have to remain hidden.
“If only we could do this all the time,” I say, hardly above a whisper. My head rests on his chest, he brushes a thumb over my cheek.
“Well tell me, where would you take me if I somehow could join you above ground in the city.” I couldn’t picture Maddox strolling through Central Park or across the Brooklyn Bridge, it’s a foreign land compared to the laundry room and his neighborhood. I imagine sitting beside him on the subway or walking down my street. My mind tries swapping past partners' silhouettes with Maddox’s and it isn’t working. They exist in two different worlds.
“We’d have to go to the farmer’s market, I have some favorite vendors there who I’ve gotten to know over the years, you’d do a great job of carrying all my bags for me, fruit is heavy, you know.”
“I’d happily be the brawn of your operation,” he laughs so easily, and I don’t grow tired of the sound.
“Then, naturally, I’d need to show you all the touristy spots around Manhattan, Times Square, Central Park, probably a Yankees game, and maybe I’d even force you to do one of those horrible guided tours.” In my ten years here I haven’t even done some quintessential New York tourist things. Thinking of experiencing it for the first time with Maddox sends a sweet swell through my chest. “And I’d take you to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I used to spend a lot of time there. It’s one of the most beautiful places in the city.”
“I actually do adore art, I don’t know if that’s shocking information or not.”
“Am I shocked that the massive horned brute loves a good Monet? Honestly? No, you’re very much the soft sensitive type, which I certainly can appreciate.”
He leans in and kisses my cheek, his lips seem especially soft. “On days when I need a reprieve from everything, I often find myself looking through the digital collections of The Met or MoMA. If we’re name dropping famous artists, though, Van Gogh is my personal preference. I hardly have any true connection to him, but oddly when I stare at him I feel an odd kinship to him.” God, what I would give to stand beside him looking at impressionist paintings.
“I’m inclined to push everyone to love Monet,” I say. “And usually once they see the famous water lily pond painting I tell them to go straight to Central Park so they can live and breathe it. Art is what connects the human spirit to the world around us,” I look at Maddox and then at the landscape, life and art converging. “It’s such a unique and beautiful thing that mankind has always been inclined to recreate their surroundings using pictures.
You know the cavemen painted people dancing? There was no survival reasoning behind it, they were capturing a moment in their lives, and for thousands of years people have used art to immortalize landscapes, people, and even the mundane. Then it evolved to capture abstract emotions or pain or ecstasy. Looking at art is looking into the soul of our existence, what we care for, what we find beautiful, and what we feel.”
“And these are the exact walls of yours I’ve been dying to break through,” he says with a soft smile. “I’ve never thought to put it into words in such a way, but I’m realizing that might be why I get weirdly emotional looking at a self portrait of a human man who’s been dead 200 years.”
The first time I saw Dance by Matisse at the Museum of Modern Art was on a school field trip. The bus had dropped a rowdy art class practically on the front steps, with little more than a scavenger hunt of a worksheet as guidelines. Too old for proper chaperones, too young to be trusted to not run out the doors of the museum and explore the city entirely solo. While most of the students had organically grouped up, I found myself alone, as I had for most of high school.
Being invisible was my superpower though, and I was able to slip off unnoticed and explore the museum as I’d wished. The worksheet was doable for anyone who had intrinsic knowledge of major art history, as I had, so after scribbling the answers down on a bench in a corner, I wandered.
For the first time in my life I could see the real life work that had only previously existed in textbooks or as reposted photos on my Tumblr. Salvador Dalì’s The Persistence of Memory gave me chills. Van Gogh’s Starry Night made me cry.
Nothing made my mind quiet like Dance and its depiction of figures holding hands as they moved in a circle.
My teenage brain placed the massive painting as a natural evolution from The Dancers of Cogul, the very cave painting I’d mentioned to Maddox and the piece I’d studied obsessively in art class. Browsing the gift shop I saw a mug with Keith Haring’s own take on dancers on it and I had as much of an epiphany about humanity and the arts as a teenager could. How interwoven it all was. How decade after decade, artist after artist, the joy of the human spirit was captured in a dance.
There was an invisible thread connecting mankind to one another in an intangible way. For a girl who’d craved nothing more than genuine human connection, who wanted to find myself grasping the hand of another while gleefully spinning in a circle, the cave artist, Matisse, and Keith Haring had created all that I’d desired. I bought the mug and cradled it in my hands for the hour-long bus ride back home.
Though logic and emotion were often at odds in my mind, art was incredibly simple, often simpler than words. I’m hardly a writer myself, I can’t form narratives in my mind to unpack my emotions. When I first moved to New York and had a few dollars to spare for a pay-as-you-wish ticket I spent days wandering the quiet wings of the museum. I’d stop and watch a piece for a spell, hoping it would tell me something. Explain some complicated feeling I hadn’t figured out for myself yet, or tell me how to fix myself.
All of this has brought me closer to Maddox, who’d just implied his feeling of kinship to Vincent Van Gogh. I could almost pull the invisible threads between us tighter. He knows how it feels to yearn for something he can’t put into words and the connection you feel to a long dead stranger.
“You love art so much but you haven’t seen it in person for yourself,” I state.
“No,” he says quietly, “I haven’t.”
“Don’t you wish?—”
“Things were different? Of course. It’s all I’ve known for 29 years, it’s not as sad as you probably think it is.”
“It’s still pretty fucking sad, Maddox. The circumstances are kind of shitty.”
“They are, and sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live out of hiding, for all of us to, and maybe someday it’ll happen. I can’t live in fear of hypotheticals. Right now I have you and this view, and that’s more than enough. ”
He’s definitive in his reply, and it’s enough to tell me to not continue. He holds a sadness below the surface that rarely makes an appearance, as if he’s holding it down with his two hands to keep it submerged. Maddox is so bright, and so warm, it’s impossible at times to believe he could even have the smallest speck of darkness in him. It’s come out in droplets, something about his mother, or his distance with his father, or, even rarer, his acknowledgment that the world is built to keep him hidden away.
I’m melting into him as he removes stone after stone from my tower. And I’m about to let him in further when?—
“Sigrid?” A sharp female voice calls to me and I squeeze my eyes shut hoping that it’s a weird figment of my imagination. Maybe hearing my name aloud is a manifestation of my continued anxiety about dating Maddox. His head swivels as fast as mine does towards the source of the sound. He heard it too. He mutters “fuck” under his breath. Maddox begins to stand and I lay a hand on him to silently tell him to stay sitting on the concrete steps. “This is my mess, I can’t bring you into it.” I say firmly, though my voice trembles.
Maddox pulls his hood tighter over his head and shrinks himself, and my heart tugs towards him. This wasn’t supposed to go this way. Our night above ground taking in city lights and the cold breeze off the East River wasn’t supposed to be horribly interrupted. In the darkness I see a flash of red hair, backlit by the streetlights. She shouldn’t be out this late, not by herself, not at Domino Park.
“Perrie,” I raise myself and turn towards her. “What are you doing here?” She doesn’t deserve any pleasantries, she’s barely a ghost to me anymore. Anything that remained between us has been exorcised almost entirely. Maybe I’m still cursed, maybe months or years from now I’ll be haunted by Maddox’s ghost too. For now, I’m finally cleansed of any of my past demons.
“I texted you,” she starts. “You never replied. ”
“I know,” I retort.
She defiantly places her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here? You were never the impulsive walks at midnight type.”
“Maybe I’ve changed,” I maintain my composure. She’s not being particularly cruel right now, but she’s always been good at masking her vitriol. Maddox stirs behind me, a few steps down closer to the water.
“Maybe you have,” she remarks. “I’ve been wanting to meet with you and talk, you know. About how we’d left things.”
“You mean how you left things,” I correct her. I was the one left, I was the one who had to pick myself off of the floor of our shared apartment after crying for days. I’d spent months rebuilding my life, I had barely made a dent in repairing myself back to who I used to be. When I met Maddox I was shriveled and broken, and yet he was the one who gleefully breathed life back into me. Seeing Perrie now, I feel nothing, and I can’t even remember how she made me feel when things were good. All the butterflies, warmth, and giggles I share with Maddox never existed with Perrie. It's laughable that I lived for years in a world without such a warm, sweet love.
“I know it was sudden,” she says. “But you have to understand, I was being suffocated. If I didn’t escape I don’t know what I would’ve done.”
“Wow,” I scoff. “I didn’t realize I’d been holding you captive.”
“No, Sigrid, that’s not—” I hear a low growl from behind me as she speaks, I know Maddox is listening in. I can’t see him. I can imagine his fists are clenching and his jaw is tightening. And maybe it would be better to unleash him on her, he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but his presence is enough to scare her off. It worked on me, after all.
“That’s exactly what you implied, no?” I ask .
“You don’t get it, you’re just so…complacent with things. I couldn’t live a life with a partner who was spending her nights baking and reading fanfiction. I needed more. You were always so sensitive too, it was exhausting being with you.”
She’s grossly exaggerating, I’m social, I’d be the one to bring her along to Matthias’ comedy shows, or underground concerts Margo found. Whatever sensitivity she perceived was because I detested her callous quips and backhanded compliments.
She didn’t like the things that made me, me. The same quirks that Freddie tried to train out of me. They’re the same pieces of me that Maddox seemed to swiftly fall for. Coexisting in the kitchen seems to be his favorite place to be, he listens to me talk about my baking as if it’s the most exciting thing in the world. My passion isn’t trampled down like it had been with Perrie. He loves me openly and loudly.
“So instead of telling me any of that, you just…left?” I ask.
“I needed to get out and breathe for once. I know it was unfair?—”
I am so much stronger now than I was that day. Everything I held back is coming to the surface. “It was. It was cruel, actually. You sprung the full cost of rent on me, you didn’t speak to me the day you left, I didn’t have any answers. You made me feel like there was something wrong with me.”
“Well, the rent thing was shitty. I get that.” She says.
“ALL of it was shitty. Honestly? You were a shitty girlfriend, who got shittier when you decided to leave because I was ‘suffocating’ you. This doesn’t warrant a discussion. It’s been almost a year. After I spent months getting over you, I’ve finally moved on to someone who doesn’t make love feel like an afterthought.”
Perrie steps closer, her red hair explodes from beneath her beanie, she places a hand on my forearm, “Sigrid?— ”
“Don’t fucking touch me. Don’t speak to me again.”
“Ok, you’re being a little dramatic, don’t you think?” She scoffs. Hot anger spreads across my body, looking at her fills me with an incredible rage. The sadness I’d felt has morphed into something else entirely now. I don’t miss her, I don’t miss what we had. I want her to leave and let me get back to my night with Maddox. Maddox who is safe, and warm, and wouldn’t make me feel like Perrie does because even if he decides to leave, he would never do so as cruelly as she did. Maddox who is…standing directly behind me now.
“Everything alright?” He lays a firm hand on my shoulder and I back myself into him. I’m hardly a damsel in distress, I’ve never once wanted to be the one hiding myself behind a strong man just to feel safe and protected. I know it’s not a complete abandonment of my independence when it’s with Maddox. He’d retreat if I asked him to.
For so long I’d been fighting everything myself. It was always me against the world, and my curse, and whatever else life threw at me. I don’t have to handle it alone now. Maddox repositions himself, standing firmly beside me, not looming above me or in front of me. It’s a small gesture, but one that silently says “we’re going to go through this side by side.” I turn my head to glance at him, he’s focused on Perrie who is staring at him, mouth agape. His eyes turn into dark stormy waters, a hurricane lurking beneath the surface.
“What-what the fuck,” Perrie stammers.
“No one will ever believe you,” Maddox sneers and grabs my hand.
“I’d like to get back to my night now, Perrie. Have a good life, without me in it,” I speak as Maddox pulls me towards him. My cheeks are wet, I’d been crying without noticing. These tears feel like a strange relief, and I don’t think I mind them, even as I dab them away with my jacket sleeve. I’m cold now, Perrie’s left without a sound, and hopefully won’t ever figure out that the monster she’d hallucinated was most definitely real.
“You really didn’t have to do that,” I mutter to Maddox.
“Do what?” He tilts his head towards me as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. The wind has picked up now, and is threatening to blow his hoodie straight off his head, the cotton fabric tugs at his horns a bit.
“That whole protecting me thing. I promise, I can hold my own. You shouldn’t have to risk yourself to save me.”
“I think,” he stops and grabs my chin, “I’ll do whatever I want if it means you’re safe.” We stand on the steps, surrounded by the twinkling lights of Manhattan bouncing across the water. If this was a movie, he’d absolutely be kissing me right now. The precise moment the thought crosses my mind, his lips press against mine. Maybe our romance isn’t quite a fairytale, but it certainly feels magical right now. His hands grip my waist and he balls up my jacket in his fists as he deeply inhales. My hands grip the sides of his face and my thumbs stroke the soft fur on his cheeks.
We part, and he looks at me with soft eyes drunk on affection. “I would rip apart whatever veil separates us with my bare hands if it meant I could spend my eternity like this,” he growls into the nape of my neck. His breath is scorching as it spreads across each pore and follicle.
He brushes a finger down my cheek, his claw barely grazes the flushed skin. His soft warm fingertip contrasting with the sharp cold point sends a spark of exhilaration down my spine. Through fumbling fingers I place my hand against his chest, his heartbeat thrums through his fur.
“Maddox,” I whisper with a trembling voice. “I want every minute to feel just as good as this does. After seeing Perrie, and remembering what I lost, you might be the greatest thing that's happened to me. I don’t know if I deserve you, or what you’ve given me, or your patience, but I want more of whatever this is. ”
He wraps himself around me, his arm lazily hangs over my shoulder. I cozy up into his broad chest until I’m fully encased by him. He lets out a few chuckles, his body shakes up and down with rumbling laughter.
“What,” I say through damp eyes, “why are you laughing?” Maddox’s wide blue eyes narrow.
“Because every single thing you said I’ve already known,” he speaks with a low rasp.