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Smoking on the Bus
Everybody here belongs to Marvel. They just moonlight with me.
For Joe, John and Ed, three gentlemen of a certain age who inspire me with their kindness and courage. And for Mitchell,
who just kicks butt.
Marie and Bobby were in the office. Again. Charles Xavier sighed. It seemed to him that they had been there every
week in the last month, sitting in two blue chairs in front of his desk, waiting to explain how whatever it was they had
done was all a misunderstanding. As usual, Marie was picking at the polish on her nails and chewing on her lip. Bobby was
looking all around, as though the paperweights or curtains would suddenly divulge some truth.
The professor sighed again. "Would you like to tell me," he said, "why it is that you were in front
of a bar on Howard Street in the first place? I understand that, Bobby, you felt that the bikers were being intimidating
to Marie, and that they needed to, as you put it, cool off. But why were you in front of a biker bar in the first place?"
"We were going to the mall," Marie said.
"Westchester Mall is four miles away from the biker bar. Unless you intended a very long walk, it seems an odd
place to get off the bus."
Bobby squirmed. "We didn’t mean to get off the bus."
"You mistook your stop and got off the bus four miles early?" And, Charles Xavier thought, couldn’t
tell the difference between a mall and a biker bar?
"We had to get off the bus," Marie said.
"Right there," Bobby added helpfully. "We didn’t plan for it to be a biker bar. We didn’t
really plan to get off the bus until we got to Westchester Mall."
"I see," said the professor, who didn’t. "So why did you have to get off the bus?"
Bobby shrugged.
Marie raised her chin. "Because I was smoking on the bus. So the driver said we had to get off."
"Ah," the professor said. "I see."
"And I didn’t want her to get off by herself," said Bobby, as though that were self-evident.
Which it was. Charles Xavier could see Bobby’s impressions clearly without even trying. Marie’s
hands, clasped in black cotton gloves with a single pearl button at the wrist, vintage gloves found in a second-hand store
somewhere, lighting a cigarette in clear imitation of the glove-wearing ingénues who had lit up theater screens in his youth.
All she lacked was the black cigarette holder and the red, red lips. Smoking on the bus.
He wasn’t wearing gloves, and he didn’t use a cigarette holder, but his motions were as economical
and elegant as any starlet’s. One quick flick on a cylindrical slender steel lighter, an exaggerated draw, a
very, very slow exhale – that was Erik lighting a cigarette. Charles thought it was beautiful. Which was probably
the reason he made such a production out of it, though you never could tell with Erik.
He hadn’t known what to make of Erik at first. Charles had started at Columbia when he was seventeen, and
spent the first semester in a quietly miserable medley of excellent grades and social isolation. So when Ilene called him
just before Thanksgiving and asked him if he would come with her on a double date, he said yes without thinking.
Last year, at home in Westchester, he had gone to the Senior Prom with Ilene. She had been the only girl in his calculus
class, a tiny blonde with a ferocious intellect and a facility for foreign languages Charles wished he could equal. They
had been co-presidents of the Math Club, the first time a girl had ever even been in it. Her parents had as much money
as his did. She wasn’t boring to be around, and didn’t talk about film stars, so he had dated her in
a desultory fashion, and they’d gone to the prom together.
"Charles," she said, "I really need you. So how about Saturday?"
"Why me?" Charles asked.
Ilene sighed. "Because you won’t get the wrong idea. And I have to go. My roommate Miriam asked me
to double with her, and after the scene my daddy pulled on Parents’ Weekend, I really have to take the old olive
branch."
Charles remembered that vaguely. Mr. Shipton had pitched a fit when he found out Ilene’s roommate Miriam
was Jewish. He’d gone to the Dean of Students, but Columbia was a pretty liberal place, and wasn’t about
to change room assignments because somebody’s dad didn’t want his daughter rooming with a Jew. Besides,
Miriam’s parents were from Philadelphia, and probably had more money than the Shiptons.
"Miriam heard about it of course, and she’s been nice enough not to hold Daddy against me. So she asked
me if I’d like to double with her for a movie and dessert on Saturday. Come on, Charles. I need you!"
So Charles gave in. He hadn’t actually been out of the room for dessert and a movie all semester.
Clad in his best navy blazer and khakis with a sporty striped tie, he went to get Ilene at 6:30. Ten minutes of standing
and sweating in the lobby of her dormitory while half a dozen girls looked at him was hellacious torment. He was ready
to leave and call her from the payphone on the corner when she finally came downstairs.
Ilene had permed her hair, and she was wearing a blue dress that was more elegant than he remembered in Westchester.
"You look great," he said.
"So do you." They walked six blocks to the movie, talking about classes. Ilene was in Advanced Differentials.
She really liked it. Charles wasn’t taking math.
The cigarette was the first thing Charles saw. Miriam was leaning forward, laughing, while Erik lit her cigarette with
that elegant, studied gesture. He was shorter than Charles, dark haired, in a gray tweed sport jacket that was the same
color as his eyes. Intense.
"Hi Miriam," Ilene said. "Hi Erik. This is Charles."
"Charles Xavier," Charles said, offering his hand in what he hoped was a man to man kind of way.
"Erik Lehnsherr." He shook hands, and Charles stepped back abruptly to avoid the flood of images, thrown
together like disconnected bits of newsreel. This happened sometimes. At first it had scared him, but he had learned
to stop it, to close the contact off.
"Nice to meet you," he said.
The movie was Bell, Book and Candle , with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. They sat together in a row, Charles, Ilene,
Miriam and Erik. Erik had his arm around Miriam, and they laughed quietly sometimes during the first few scenes. Charles
wondered if he ought to hold Ilene’s hand. He reached for it gingerly during the nightclub scene. Her hand was
damp and cold from holding her coke. She didn’t take it away, and she didn’t look at him, so after a
few minutes he took it back.
He hoped Jimmy and Kim would work out. They did, but only when she gave up her powers to be with a normal human. Charles
wished he hadn’t agreed to dessert.
Miriam and Ilene picked The Grill, which was more expensive than Charles wanted. He’d never been in there.
It was smoky and dark, with Ravel playing on the stereo and wooden booths with pictures of Columbia teams from the twenties
and thirties. He sat on the outside of the booth, with Ilene beside him. Erik was across from him. The menu had coffee
and lots of fancy desserts. Charles ordered apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Ilene had a soda, Miriam had cherry
bombe and Erik some chocolate thing with lots of chocolate sauce. Miriam and Ilene talked about Kim Novak’s clothes,
which was a surprise to Charles. He didn’t know Ilene cared about clothes.
"I didn’t like it," Charles blurted.
All three of them stared at him. He knew he was being a moron, but he rushed on.
"It was wrong of him to want her to give up being a witch to marry him. I mean, what could he possibly give her
that would be worth giving up what she had?"
"Love?" said Miriam.
"Can you love somebody and hate what they are?" Charles asked. "Doesn’t sound like love to
me."
Erik Lehnsherr leaned forward. "Interesting, Xavier." There was something calculating in those gorgeous
eyes, as though he were really noticing Charles for the first time.
"I don’t see why she wanted to be a witch anyway," Ilene said.
"She was born that way," Charles said. "You saw. Her whole family were witches. It wasn’t
fair of him to ask her to give that up."
"I think you could read that as interesting social commentary on assimilation," Erik said.
Miriam shrugged. "I suppose. I just don’t think she needed to act so weird. All the bongo drums and
African art."
"What’s wrong with African art?" Charles asked.
"African art," said Erik, with a long drag on his cigarette, "is made by Africans. Who are not white."
"So?" Charles demanded.
"White women," said Erik deliberately, "are not supposed to be interested in art made by black men.
Or by Asian men. Or by Jews."
"I like Chopin," Ilene said defensively. "And Fats Domino."
Erik smiled in a way Charles wasn’t sure how to take. "There you go. Ilene’s crossing the
lines already."
Miriam looked cross. "You don’t have to have such a chip on your shoulder, Erik."
"I’m not sure my shoulder’s where it is."
"I just don’t think…" Charles was losing track of this conversation somewhere, and madly
grabbed for it. "I mean, the witchy world was so much more interesting. And she gave it up for this boring life straight
out of House Beautiful. Why would anyone do that?"
"Women don’t have much choice," Ilene said. "Men can go places and do interesting things and
do what they want. But House Beautiful is the best we can do. No matter what we know."
Erik smiled. "And is that fair?"
"It’s not fair. But that’s the way it is," Ilene said.
"I never thought…I mean you…you’re smarter than I am," Charles finished awkwardly.
Ilene looked at him, and the walls broke down. He could feel the wash of her despair and fading hope. "So what?
Do you think anyone wants a girl scientist?"
"I don’t know. I…."
"Not everyone," Erik observed, "is you, Charles."
Miriam changed the subject, and he followed gratefully if not gracefully. They walked both girls back to the dorm.
He and Ilene didn’t hold hands. They went in the parlor gravely, and said goodnight under the watchful eye
of the chaperones.
Charles went back out, passing Miriam on the steps. Her lipstick was smudged and her blouse was buttoned wrong. For
some reason that made him mad.
Erik was sauntering down the sidewalk under the streetlights. He turned and waited, his shadow cast black along the
path. "Going uptown, Xavier?"
Charles had been planning to go back to his room and study, but it was barely 9:00. "Yes," he said.
"The Village?"
"Yes," said Charles, licking his lip. "Are you a Communist?"
Erik Lehnsherr laughed. "Everything dangerous in one little neat package? You’ve got a pretty limited
imagination."
"I don’t," Charles said. "My imagination works fine. It’s the rest of everything
that doesn’t."
"You’ve got too much to lose," Erik said. They waited for the bus.
"How old are you?" Charles asked into the silence.
"Twenty-two." Erik looked down the street in the direction of the bus. "I’m a special student."
"I thought you might be. Where are you from?"
"Poland." Erik gave him a sideways glance. "Why?"
Charles shrugged. "Just wondered. Your English is good. You must have had good teachers."
"I learned English in a Displaced Persons camp," Erik said shortly.
Charles shut up. He wondered if he ought to go back to his room and study. But he would look like a square if he left
now after saying he was going uptown.
They got on the bus and sat down in the last row, Erik beside the window and Charles on the aisle. There was nobody
else in the back of the bus.
Charles’ loafers were shiny and new. Erik’s weren’t. Their knees didn’t quite
touch.
"So what are you studying?" he asked.
"Engineering."
The one-word answers weren’t helping. Charles flailed around for another topic of conversation to fill the
awkward silence.
Erik looked at him sideways. "You really didn’t like the movie."
"No," Charles said. "I didn’t. It was saccharine and sweet and wrong. It set you up to think
she was this really interesting person and showed you how swell the witchy world was, and then you were supposed to buy
that she gave it all up for this guy who didn’t even like her the way she was."
"And you would never do that?"
"No," said Charles, and realized that he meant it. "Would you?"
"Of course not."
The bus stopped. Somewhere in the Village. Charles had absolutely no idea where they were. He looked out the window
apprehensively.
"Are you coming?" Erik asked.
"Professor?" Bobby asked.
"I’m sorry, what did you say?" Charles said.
"I said, I didn’t mean to get Bobby in trouble," Marie said.
"Ah. Of course not." Charles paused. "You must be more careful in the future."
Marie and Bobby looked at each other as if it were a complete non sequitur.
"Go on now. Go finish your homework."
They went, scattering like puppies eager to believe their good fortune. Ororo passed them in the doorway.
"Marie and Bobby again, Professor?"
Charles sighed. "At least things are getting back to normal around here."
"As normal as they’re going to be." Ororo missed Jean nearly as much as he did, which is to say,
terribly. Charles closed down that particular bit of empathy. "Any idea where John is?"
"I haven’t had a chance to use Cerebro tonight. But I feel certain he’s still with them."
"Magneto and Mystique." Ororo’s voice was tight. "We’ve got to get him back, Professor.
We don’t know what might be happening to him. What they’ll do. Or what John might do."
"John left of his own free will. I don’t think rushing into a conflict will solve anything."
Ororo perched on the edge of the desk. "I’m worried about him, Professor."
Charles patted her hand. "So am I, Ororo. So am I."
"It’s my fault."
"No, it’s not. You can’t blame yourself for the choices other people make. John is old enough
to understand the consequences of his own actions."
Ororo looked skeptical. "Did you understand the consequences of everything you did when you were his age?"
Charles had never been in a bar before. He was eighteen. He supposed he could be in a bar.
It was smoky and dark, and there weren’t any women there. It was in a basement, and everyone seemed awfully
quiet. You could actually hear the jazz in the background. Erik sat down at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. Charles
sat down next to him and ordered one too.
People seemed to really keep to themselves, gathering in little pockets at back tables and sitting very close together.
Several of the men seemed kind of overdressed, in glittery rayon shirts or jackets with Nehru collars. "Are they in
a show?" Charles asked.
Erik just looked at him and raised one eyebrow. "Not your cup of tea?"
Underneath the casual question, Charles felt his sudden uncertainty, the fear that he had made a terrible mistake, a
dangerous mistake. Charles couldn’t imagine what.
The bartender put down the gin and tonic. Charles took a gulp and felt his eyes water. "Fine," he said.
And with that his tentative shields went down. They were all crowding through his head, all their desires and self-hatreds,
lust and fun and pain and need. All of them, all their wants and fears. The blond boy by the door who had attempted suicide.
The businessman from Idaho who only came to places like this when he was in New York once a year. The advertising designer
who was sitting with his friends, talking about a play with Lawrence Olivier. Suddenly he understood.
Erik was like a shadow at the edge of his mind. He could see a gate etched against the sky. Rain. Twisted barbed
wire and steel. Charles pushed just a little to see more. The guards in their overcoats, the guns on the towers. The
frightened people herded from the trains. His parents….
He understood. It took a long moment to close it out. "You were in a camp." Charles didn’t realize
he had said it out loud.
Erik was looking at him closely, blue-gray eyes shadowed. "How did you know?"
"I can feel things. Other people's emotions. Other people's thoughts." Charles didn't know what he was doing
saying any of this at all.
Erik leaned in, looked calculating. "I knew a woman in Europe who said she could read minds."
Charles licked his lip. "And you?"
"What did you see?"
"What can you do?"
Erik shrugged. With a snap, the radio behind the bar turned off. Annoyed, the bartender looked up. With a twist of
the knob, it switched back on.
Charles swallowed. "You did that with your mind?" he asked softly.
"Yes."
"What else can you do?"
Erik smiled. "You're not afraid?"
"Should I be?" he asked. But he was, just a little.
Ororo went to bed. Charles Xavier rolled through the basement corridor on his way to Cerebro. He supposed he had to
look for John. The door opened. He went inside.
The familiar weight of Cerebro on his head was infinitely comforting. There was the usual burst of sensation, and then
the transcendent knowing, the sensing of people all over the world. Charles savored it, waiting before he focused on John,
enjoying the completeness of the moment, of resting in the arms of people all over the world who were like him, knowing
their strength and number. As many as stars. As many as universes.
And then he reached for John. It was easy. John was sleeping, quiet and comfortable. Charles had a fleeting impression
of the room, of the couch John was sleeping on, cool leather against his face. People were talking not far away, but John
tuned it out, comfortable as a child in the back of a car.
Erik.
His voice was a pain and a joy, the same voice, light and worn around the edges. He sounded tired. "Have you
seen the cell phone?"
A low female voice replied, "It’s under the newspaper." Mystique.
"Ah." Through John, Charles heard the sound of the cell phone dialing and Erik’s voice as he moved
away, taking the phone into another room. Charles listened to the distant murmur, the rise and fall of sound. Tired, yes.
A voice that matched the face he had last seen in the prison cell. Erik had been sitting with his head against his
hand casually, so that it didn’t seem that he was concealing the vivid bruise across his cheek. By the time Charles
had seen it, by the time he had known, it was too late.
He had known. Or should have known. He knew Erik. He saw how stiffly he had moved, sore from beatings. He saw the
bruises. And chose to believe...what?
He had believed what he wanted to believe, that everything was fine. Because believing otherwise would have meant that
Erik was right.
"All right then." The sound of the cell phone hanging up. Erik was coming back towards John. "Do you
think we should move him?"
Mystique. "He’s asleep. Let him be."
Charles could picture Erik’s shrug. "Why not?" The sound of a metal chair scraping against a stone
floor. A long silence. Charles did not reach for Mystique’s mind. Scrupulously, carefully did not.
Instead, sleeping, John opened one eye.
She was sitting in the steel chair, her back to Erik, her left arm extended over her head as she leaned back into his
body, blue against black. He was wearing black pants and a dress shirt the color of stained pewter, eyes shadowed as he
turned her palm up and kissed it. She opened her fingers against his face.
Erik closed his eyes. Pain and desire and exhaustion and utter trust. Charles had seen that _expression only a few
times before, in the night after dreams of ashes and graves. And he would never see it again except vicariously.
Charles shuddered back into his body. Carefully, he removed Cerebro, turned out the lights, and sat for a while in
the dark.
Weeknights were for Erik. They sat up every weeknight, pouring over notes, sharing things they had learned, trying
experiments they designed themselves. Erik could move things with his mind as long as they contained ferrous metal. He
could manipulate small pieces of iron and steel, not very precisely, yet, but they were practicing.
Charles could read thoughts. The Rhine cards were a brief challenge, until he could reach 100% each time. Erik held
the cards, and he called them. It was very easy.
Weekends were a different matter. Charles usually spent Friday night in the library while Erik was on one of his endless
dates with some girl or other. One Friday night he found himself back in the bar in Greenwich Village, a worn copy of The
Charioteer in his pocket. He had found it in a second hand stall, and read it first with horror and then guilty avidity.
He read it twice.
After that he did not let Erik read his thoughts anymore.
Charles sat down by himself at the bar and ordered a beer. He drank it slowly, listening to conversations around him
about plays he hadn’t seen.
The police came while he was there. They checked the restrooms carefully. He could feel the hate pouring off them,
hate and contempt. Utter contempt, as though he were something subhuman, something foul beyond words, sitting there in
his navy blue blazer, a kid straight from prep school.
Charles could almost smell the fear. Conversations stopped. A blond man in a turtleneck started for the door. One
of the policemen motioned him back in his seat. Charles felt the book like a lead weight in his pocket.
On the edge of panic. One of the businessmen from out of town was on the edge of panic, of running.
Calm, Charles thought, spreading his hands on the worn wooden bar. Don’t move. Don’t say anything.
Give them no excuse. The man stayed still.
One of the policemen came over to the bar. Charles made himself look up innocently.
Subhuman. Pervert. Deviant. Queer. How much he would enjoy wiping the innocent look off Charles’ privileged
face, enjoy smacking him across the side of the head with his night stick. Rich queers who didn’t work for their
living, just freeloaded in Communist universities and lived off hard-working ordinary people.
In the stillness Charles noted the handcuffs on his belt, and thought irrelevantly that Erik would be out of handcuffs
in two seconds flat. He wondered how he was going to explain this to his parents. He would probably be expelled from Columbia.
They left. There had been no one in the restrooms.
Charles was shaking on the bus on the way home. Sick at his stomach, he looked out the window and considered pitching
The Charioteer out into the slushy street. He didn’t.
He also didn’t tell Erik.
The next Friday night he went back. He made himself sit at the bar until he stopped feeling sick and drank a beer,
listening to conversations about plays he hadn’t seen.
"Professor?"
Charles Xavier snapped around.
Marie was waiting in the corridor by the elevator outside his office. "Could I talk to you for a minute?"
It was late. It was very late. But she looked troubled. "Of course."
Inside, she sat down again in the blue chair, gnawing on her lip.
"What’s on your mind?" Charles asked.
"You asked me before if I knew why John left," she said.
"Yes," he agreed. "I did. I wondered if there was something that happened that made John not want to
stay at the school."
Marie fiddled with her necklace. "And I said no. It wasn’t that something happened, exactly. It was
more like something didn’t happen."
"Between you and John?" Charles asked gently.
Marie shook her head. "No, between Bobby and John. I mean, before I came here it was always Bobby and John, best
friends, you know. And maybe there was something that John thought but nobody said, you know? Because Bobby wasn’t
interested. And then I came, and Bobby was all about me. And I really like John, and he’s cool and all, so I
kind of tried to make it the three of us hanging out, because it wasn’t ever going to be like John wanted it but
that wasn’t Bobby’s fault, it’s just the way it was. But Bobby wanted to spend more time with
just me, and John kind of knew that." Marie looked up. "I don’t know if that makes any sense to you.
I mean, you probably don’t get it."
"Yes, Marie. I understand." He looked away. It made sense now. "It’s difficult, friendship
and attraction. I do understand."
"I didn’t want John to leave."
"I know."
"Bobby feels really guilty. I mean, he’s really sorry he didn’t feel that way, you know?"
"I know." Sometimes it was almost hard to believe how different things were now. "Bobby has nothing
to feel guilty about. Nor do you. Nor does John. Sometimes people just have to go their own way."
Marie looked up. "Professor, do you think John’s in trouble? Do you think something awful is going
to happen to him?"
Charles smiled ruefully. "I understand why he wanted to go. And I can think of a good many places that would
be more dangerous for John than where he is. No, he’s not safe. But I don’t think he wants to be."
"Magneto tried to kill me," Marie said.
"I remember."
"And you think that’s ok?" she asked.
"No, Marie. I don’t think it’s ok. Magneto belonged in prison for that. And I…I
made the mistake of believing that justice would be served, and his sentence would be reasonable and humane."
"John says that humane is for humans. Do you believe that?"
Charles closed his hand on the arm of the wheelchair. "No, Marie. I do not. But I think some people agree with
John, some people on both sides." He took a deep breath. "And I think that I made a terrible mistake. It can’t
be undone, and because I made it Scott was nearly killed, and all of you – the school, everything that happened
here need not have. And there is nothing that I can do now that will fix it."
"You could say you’re sorry," said Marie.
They were talking about telepathy. It was after 2 am, early on a Tuesday morning. Erik had a single – no
roommate – so you could talk all night if you wanted to. Erik sat on the bed, carelessly made up with a navy
blue quilt. Charles was sitting on the uncomfortable plastic chair, explaining how difficult it was not to cheat on tests
and how hard it was to get the answers you knew were right when people were all around you thinking about the same questions.
Erik lit a cigarette. There was something about that graceful, economical gesture that always made Charles lose his
place in the conversation. Erik put down the lighter and exhaled softly, a warm stream of smoke. He reached for the ashtray
on the desk.
"You do that on purpose," Charles said.
"Do what?"
"Smoke like a starlet," he said.
Erik raised one eyebrow. "Is that supposed to be insulting?"
"No." It would be so easy to reach for Erik’s mind, to touch beyond the simple squares and triangles
language of the cards. He didn’t. He never did.
Erik looked amused. "Does it bother you, Charles? A little too androgynous for your taste?"
"How would you know what my taste is?"
"I wouldn’t know. You never date anyone."
Which was true, and if Erik couldn’t draw any conclusions from that he wasn’t about to draw them
for him.
Erik took another long draw. "Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly?"
Charles leaned back. "Definitely Audrey." An easy game. Movies, literature. Nothing taxing. Nothing that
would bring him too close to the truth and lose his best friend. He knew what he wanted now. And he knew he would not
have it, that he would never cross the line with Erik into actions that would be impossible to excuse.
"Marilyn or Ava?"
"Tough one. I suppose Ava. She can actually act in On the Beach ."
Erik snorted. "There’s one movie that won’t keep me up at night. I don’t understand
the morbid attraction of imagining nuclear war."
Charles shrugged. "I suppose they think that if people imagine how bad it could be that we won’t do
it."
"As if that had anything to do with it." Erik said. "People want what they’re told to want.
In France in the 30’s people elected a Jewish President. Less than ten years later they were happy to turn Jews
over to the Germans."
"Not everyone, Erik."
"Most people. Enough people."
Charles wanted to get off this topic. He knew where this would go. "I thought we were talking about my taste."
"We were," Erik said. He seemed to be visibly pulling himself back from somewhere. " Vanity Fair –
Becky or Amelia?"
"Amelia."
"Lolita or Mona?"
"Mona. Tropic of Cancer is a much better book."
"Ralph or Andrew?"
Belatedly, Charles realized that he had left The Charioteer on top of his coat, rather than folded inside it. His mouth
opened but nothing came out.
Erik was watching him, ready to turn it into a joke, gray-blue eyes just a little too keen. It mattered what he said.
Charles didn’t need telepathy to know that.
Charles swallowed. "Ralph," he said evenly.
Erik stubbed out the cigarette, watching his own fingers very carefully, as though he might get burned. "Andrew’s
hopeless, don’t you think?"
Charles could hear his own pulse pounding in his ears. "I thought you dated women," he said.
"I do." Erik shrugged. He looked up, searching Charles’ face with those gorgeous eyes. "We’re
not human, Charles. I don’t see why we should be bound by outdated human rules and superstitions." Slowly,
through the chipped white metal bars of the bed frame, he reached for Charles’ hand.
He saw it coming. He could have moved. Instead, he sat as still as a mouse in a trap, waiting for the touch that ran
across his palm like fire. He did not move as Erik turned his hand up and kissed the tips of his fingers.
A long breath escaped him. Charles could feel Erik’s lips brushing the sensitive pads of his fingers, slow
and sensual. He arched his hand against the line of his chin. Warm skin and late-night stubble.
Erik looked up, watching for his reaction. Whatever he saw satisfied him. Firmly he drew Charles toward him, the metal
of the headboard between them.
Charles closed his eyes. He had imagined a kiss. He had even imagined kissing Erik, but he had not quite imagined
this. It was slow and warm, deep and tasting of cigarettes. The world darkened. Erik had leaned between him and the lamp.
The metal bars pressed against his chest as his arms went around Erik, dragging at the soft cotton of his shirt. He made
some incomprehensible sound.
"You want this," Erik whispered. Charles wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.
"I want everything." And because he didn’t even have the words, he poured it straight into Erik’s
mind, all the desires he had imagined in the darkness of his dorm room, the secret pleasures he had made up in his mind,
his cheek against Erik’s.
Erik bared his teeth. You couldn’t call it a smile; it was much too primal for that. His lips came down
on Charles’ again, devouring, pushing.
Charles’ arms were around him, dragging at his shirt, wanting to touch flesh. He pulled apart for a second.
"The damn headboard’s in the way."
With a screech, the headboard tore loose from the bed and hit the floor.
"That works," Charles said.
Then the bed collapsed.
They made love on the mattress on the floor. It was awkward and strange and not the transcendent experience Charles
had imagined. Reality is never what you imagine. Still, as he fell asleep, he thought that it was the best reality he
had ever known.
Awaking, he felt a great peace descending on him. He lay there cramped and awkward with Erik sleeping against him.
Half under the quilt, half on it, Erik was curled back into him still wearing, curiously enough, his watch.
The dorm was very quiet. It was ten o’clock, and almost everyone had left for class. There was the faint
distant sound of a shower running on the floor above. Charles desperately wanted a shower, but he hated to move, to end
this endless time between doing and speaking of it. The light crept through the window and across the floor. In some time
(minutes? hours?) it would cross Erik’s face and wake him. In the silence, Erik’s watch was very loud.
Time, Charles thought. Trickling away. Moments coming and becoming the past. Already everything that happened is
in the past. I’ve crossed my river, my Rubicon, and nothing can change the past. There was a tremendous relief
in that, he found. All those months of wondering what would happen, of courting the forbidden, of sitting in the bar, guilty
by association but not guilty in fact – now he was guilty, he had done the crime no one had yet bothered to accuse
him of. In an hour, or tomorrow, he would get up and put on a tie and go to class and no one would know that he was an
outlaw, a mutant, a homophile. But he would know. He would know that he was already a thousand miles away, forever apart.
Erik stirred in his sleep and curled tighter against Charles’ chest, his arm outflung, the watch ticking.
And Charles saw the numbers in blue against his skin.
Is this love, he wondered, this terrible anger?
Soft dark hair and fair skin, a face that had never been pretty but had the stark symmetry Charles associated with sculptures
of obscure Romans, bones meant for a taller frame. His father, Charles knew from flashes in Erik’s mind, had
been taller than he was now, but childhood deprivation and adolescence in the camps had robbed him of a few inches. The
thought made Charles want to squeeze, as though crushing him would somehow give back everything that had been taken, as
though he could somehow turn back the clock and rescue him at eight years old and raise him without fear. As though he
could make Erik the person he would have been.
"It’s not too late," he whispered. "I promise."
"I didn’t mean to offend you or anything," Marie said.
Charles blinked.
"When I said you could say you’re sorry," Marie added.
"Sometimes that doesn’t fix it," Charles said. "There are things that are just broken. Sometimes
it’s too late."
"I’m sure Scott would accept your apology," Marie said gently. "You know he would."
For a moment Charles was at sea. "Scott?"
"That you’re sorry for nearly getting him killed." Marie was very patient. He could hear her thoughts,
wondering what in the world was the matter with him. He seemed so spacey. He was really taking losing Jean very hard.
"Oh, yes," Charles said. "Yes, he certainly would."
"Then why don’t you talk to Scott?" Marie asked.
"I will," Charles said. "I will indeed." He knew he sounded foolish, but he was trying with some
little success to stay separate from her, to maintain an appropriate demeanor. It was too easy to see the shadow of Erik
in her mind, the ruthless and calm stranger who had tried to kill her.
Marie looked down at her lap. "About John…. Do you have a problem with…you know…John
being queer?"
"That’s not a nice word to use," Charles snapped.
"What word?" Marie seemed genuinely confused. "Queer? That’s what all the queer kids call
themselves."
Charles took a deep breath. "Maybe so, but for people my age that’s a word that you shouldn’t
use. A word with a lot of bad associations."
Marie was looking at him like he’d suddenly sprouted a second head, or told her she shouldn’t use
the word bald. "Ok, professor. Sure. But do you have a problem with John?"
"No."
Marie looked very doubtful.
"I’m concerned about John because he’s joined forces with people who are likely to get him
into a lot of trouble, not because of anyone’s sexual orientation." Even to him it sounded pompous, and he
realized suddenly that Marie didn’t believe him. He had no idea that there was anyone unaware of his history
with Erik. Charles realized with a start that it had been common knowledge a very long time ago, with a different generation
of students. With Scott and Ororo. With Jason and Jean, both killed by Stryker’s prejudice.
Marie was watching him, and Charles frowned. He really had no experience coming out to seventeen year old girls. It
was easier when everyone had already known, but he hadn’t had a relationship since before she was born. Discussing
his hypothetical tastes was awkward at best.
"Marie, it’s complicated."
She tilted her head to one side, listening, with a gesture very like Jean’s.
Charles looked down at his own hands, his voice falsely light. "I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned
to you my own track record with relationships, but very few of them were with women."
"Oh." He would have to look up to see her face. Or use the telepathy. Which hardly seemed fair. He looked
up. Marie shrugged. "I didn’t know you were gay. It’s no biggie."
"Well, no biggie then." Charles straightened up in his chair. He couldn’t imagine what else he
could possibly say. A biggie. A biggie was something that came with a hamburger and french fries, not with risking your
liberty and sanity.
"Are you dating somebody?" she said, "if you don’t mind me asking?"
"No. I haven’t been in a relationship in quite a while." That, at least, was a simple, factual
answer.
"But you’re like totally out and all? It’s not a secret?’
"No, Marie. It’s certainly not a secret. You may tell anyone you like."
"So why did you tell me and all?"
Charles looked away. "I suppose I didn’t want to give you the impression that I had a problem with John’s
decision to leave because of his sexual orientation, or because of Erik."
Now Marie looked as though she were at sea. "Who’s Erik?"
It took Charles a moment of disbelief to realize that she didn’t know. "Dr. Lehnsherr," he said,
as though that explained it. From the blank look on her face, clearly it didn’t.
He didn’t want to have this conversation. He didn’t want to see the look on her face change to
absolute disgust. And it would the moment he uttered the word Magneto. Again, factual and uninformative. "My former...lover."
"Oh." Opening his senses he could feel her confusion giving way to something like sympathy, that he must
miss Jean dreadfully to be having this conversation with her. "Did he die?" she asked quietly.
"No, we separated a long time ago."
"Were you together long?" She was trying to say what she imagined Jean would say, to be his friend, despite
the endless gaping gulf of a lifetime between them. The past is a different country.
"Nearly fifteen years." Why did it still hurt to say it? It shouldn’t.
"Who broke up with who?"
" I don’t know." Charles rolled his chair away, putting the desk between them. "I did, once.
He did, once. I could have apologized before he went to Europe, but I didn’t. I got involved with someone else.
And then when that was over, he was with someone else. He could have apologized then, but.... Too much distance, too much
time. Too many fundamental differences of opinon. And then it all seemed like a moot point."
Marie leaned forward and put her elbows on the desk. "So what did you fight about?"
"Everything. The weather by the end." He knew he should end this conversation. She was not Jean, not the
girl who had been his daughter in everything but a biological sense. "Mutant rights. The future. Politics. Values.
He believed that what I was doing here was pointless, that someday there would be war between humans and mutants, and that
my efforts at detente were bound to be fruitless. That humans hated and feared us too much."
"Sounds like John," Marie said.
Charles shook his head. "Erik was not at all like John. He had a mind like quicksilver; I couldn’t
keep up with him. He was probably the most brilliant person I’ve ever known, and that’s saying something.
I’ve known some incredible talents. He couldn’t bear to stay in one place, or in one group of people.
Nothing could hold him. It was like trying to hold a wild bird."
"Sometimes you’ve just got to run," Marie said. "Even when people are real nice to you. You
just feel everything white and clean closing in around you like a cage."
Charles almost shuddered at the metaphor. "I suppose that may be what Erik felt."
Marie rested her face in her gloved hands. "I do, sometimes. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like it
here. But sometimes I just want to go, you know? To be somewhere more real. And then Bobby starts getting on my last
nerve, with all his stuff about how it will all get better and we’ll work everything out. I just want to scream,
you know? So I light up on the bus."
"That seems like a minor rebellion," Charles said mildly.
"But it’s not!" Marie leaned forward, eyes flashing. "Sometimes lately I just want to slap
the shit out of Bobby Drake, when he starts going on about how I need to talk about my feelings and how everything will
be fine. Because it won’t be! Does he think I’m stupid or something? I’m not going to have
a normal life. I can’t touch people without nearly killing them, even if I’m careful. I can’t
hook up with somebody! I can’t ever have a normal job, and I can’t ever have kids! It’s not
going to be alright. It never will be."
"Marie, you don’t know that you can’t have a relationship or children in the future. You don’t
know that’s true. Yes, you will always have to make allowances...."
"And I’ll make them! But he sits there all sweet and cuddly and says that it will all be ok and it will
be just like it would have been, and I just want him to go away. Logan doesn’t give me that shit and disrespect
me that way."
"I don’t think Bobby means it as disrespect....."
"He thinks I want everything to go away, so that I could be some normal mom-type and live in a house like his house
and be all groovy with my middle-of-last-week Cuisinart. And that he’s going to make me normal again and that’s
what I’ll want. But I’ll tell you something, professor. That isn’t what I wanted before I
was a mutant!"
"What did you want, Marie?" Charles asked quietly.
"I wanted to go to Alaska. I wanted to go work out in the bush somewhere, and learn to be a pilot, and fly a plane
into places nobody goes hardly, and see everything. To just be me and the sky and not have anybody tying me down. And
one day I’d go into a bar somewhere full of loggers and drifters and stuff, looking all hot and trouble, but they’d
all respect me because they’d know that Rogue could bust their ass. And there’d be this guy, and we’d
hook up and it would be something special. But he’d have his life and I’d have mine and there wouldn’t
be no split level houses in it. I’d do my thing and he’d do his. And if I caught him up with some
other chick, I’d throw him across the hood of his truck and he’d be like "Whoa baby it’s
not what you think," and we’d do the nasty right there on the hood of the truck. And there ain’t
no Bobby Drake in that picture."
She ran down and stopped, flushed. "It’s like what you were saying, professor. About the bird. I think
I’d just die in a condo in Boston."
Charles cleared his throat, his voice very gentle. "No one says that you have to choose to live in Boston, or
to live in a suburb, or to marry Bobby. I think you understand yourself very well and have a good idea of what you want."
And, he thought, in five years Logan will have more than he bargained for. Seventeen to twenty-two is travelled in the blink
of an eye.
Marie lowered her head, her eyes shadowed. "But he says he loves me. And he’s a good person. He really
is, professor."
"Is that enough?"
"No." There was something hard in her voice, something that sounded like Erik. "I can’t be
what he wants me to be. Because what he wants me to be is the girl he thinks I would have been if all of this hadn’t
happened, if I hadn’t been a mutant and hadn’t had to run away and live on my own, if Magneto hadn’t
tried to kill me, if the school hadn’t been attacked or anything. And I...." Marie looked up at him defiantly.
"I’m proud of who I am. I’m Rogue. I go through stuff and it changes me and I get by. I want
somebody who loves me for my scars, not wishes them away."
Charles closed his eyes for a long moment. "That’s hard, Marie. It’s very hard."
They had been together three months in January 1961. They went to see a play and came home laughing, taking the bus
up the island in the cold, crystalline night. They were the only ones on the bus, sitting in the last row, and everything
was funny.
You can’t see the stars in Manhattan. You don’t need to. From where he almost leaned on Erik’s
shoulder looking out at the night, the buildings were a symphony of steel and light. Erik’s eyes were the color
of water, and his hands were warm.
Twelve blocks below Columbia Erik fished out the cylindrical lighter and a cigarette. He flipped the lighter negligently,
bent and took a long draw, tasting the smoke. Charles watched.
"Here now!" He looked up at the driver, who was watching in the rear view mirror. "There’s
no smoking on the bus. Can’t you read the sign?" The bus stopped. "If you light up, you get off!"
With a shrug Erik stood and got down as the door opened. Charles followed, embarrassed a little, and mostly cold.
The bus rolled on up the street.
Erik lifted his right hand. As the bus went through the light the muffler fell off. Erik grinned.
Charles started laughing. They ran across the street under the streetlights, breath steaming in the air.
"Want to see me catch a cab?" Erik asked.
"I’m terrified," Charles said.
Erik stopped. His cool gray eyes were warm. "No, you aren’t."
"No, I’m not," he said. As they walked up the block he realized that it was true.
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