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He was drunk. More than drunk. He was drunker than he'd ever been in his young life.
Every now and then, the young Stiefel would sneak a spirit from under his father's nose - anything to dull the constant ache inside- but now his father was in no close proximity and the supply of alcohol here seemed endless and inviting. He was lucky his father didn’t know or care where he was now, for he knew the lecture he’d receive in turn would be painfully long. He was nothing but a drunken idiot and a disappointment, he thought in his father’s place. He couldn't help but conjure Herr Stiefel’s displeased scowl in his mind. Even in the physical absence of the man, Moritz felt shame trickle through his whole body and his mouth was sealed shut as some ghost of his father berated him from the inside of his head.
There was no escape. This was the escape. And look where it got him.
He sat quietly, mind racing far ahead of him, clutching and releasing the fabric of his pants subconsciously. His silent dread, as always, was abruptly interrupted by Ilse.
"Aren't you glad you came?" she spoke so near to his ear he felt the warmth of her breath and it made him jump. His cheeks warmed, his flesh tingled, and his heart sank to his stomach.
A tight lipped smile and a nod was the only response she got, but she seemed content enough with it, her smile growing wide between rose petal lips. He found it difficult to tear his eyes away from her, but he did. Nothing but shame shame shame pulled his insides apart.
There was too much going on for him to focus on one thing, so looking anywhere but her became overwhelming instantly. Girls were dancing and men sang and shouted as musicians played loud into the night and everyone was loud and drunk and he felt like he most certainly did not fit in. Like anywhere else he'd ever tried to be. He was not meant to be here and everyone knew. He began picking at the skin of his fingers but nothing seemed to soothe him. That is, until Ilse placed a warm, gentle hand upon the curve of his jaw.
A man pointed and laughed their way in the same moment that Ilse pressed two warm lips against his sunken cheek. His stomach churned deep down. He couldn't help but think how disgusting he must feel to her. Compared to her and most all of the men he saw, he was nothing — scrawny and sleep-deprived, pale and bruised and ugly. Ilse, on the other hand, had grown tall and gorgeous, with glowing skin and an hourglass figure. Not to mention, her long smooth legs that stretched out beside him, which he wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch. Guilt rained down on him again and he forced himself to shift his gaze. Ilse was a childhood friend. Ilse was the angel who saved him. She didn’t deserve to be desired as an object of sin inside his filthy mind. He almost wished she hadn’t found him. He promptly tried to shake that feeling away, too.
"Are you feeling better now, Moritz?" Her question was earnest. She hadn't asked it so closely this time, which gave him a chance to breathe, in and out, think of something to say. Something not so stupid.
"Better than before? Yes. I do," he slurred back. Stupid. She still had no clue what he had planned for tonight. The gun still lay cold and lonesome in the same spot he’d left it, where she found him, hidden - for now - by the cover of night. His answer made her grin spread ever wider and her eyes began to sparkle through the glaze. He did his best to muster a smile in return for her, but his face was tired and eyes drooping low. He couldn't find much care within himself, but he wanted to try for her. She'd been so kind to bring him here.
One hand on the side of his face - barely ghosting over the scratch of his almost-beard — and the other fell (not unnoticed) to his knee, where it took everything in him not to jerk away. She gave him a look he couldn't decipher and felt his blood run hot through him. It's only the alcohol, it's only the alcohol . Don't bring your sick thoughts into this.
(No matter that everyone else in Priapia seemed to languish in their sins. But he could not - would not - join them. He was too afraid, and anyway, he still had to go home at the end of the night. He was a terrible liar. And no doubt his father would sniff all this out. He probably knew where he was right now. Just waiting for him to come home so he could beat the miscreant out of him.)
And thank God, in the same moment, Ilse disappeared from his vision.
When she reappeared seconds later, fingers wrapped around the neck of a wine bottle that she urgently pressed to his lips, he just about scurried out of his skin. She laughed at him again but still tipped the bottle so the liquid poured into his mouth, down his chin, across his shirt. Now his father would certainly find out. His nicely pressed button up — meant to be his death suit — now a reminder of yet another one of Moritz Stiefel’s failures.
Still, the ghostly look in her blue eyes beside the angelic glow of her skin, and the sticky drink dripping from his lips was arousing in the most terrifying and curious way, and he forgot about his father in a second.
"Drink, Moritz, drink!" she insisted through a drunken laugh. When she decided he'd had his fill, she lifted the bottle to her own lips and gulped the wine down. Some drowning voice in the back of his mind worried for her. Is this what she did, always? Not a terrible life, he decided. Better than worrying yourself to death over Latin conjugations. "You'll have no more sorrows come morning, I promise you that. Except maybe a dreadful headache. But for now, abandon your troubles, Moritz, tonight you are free!"
The joy in her voice broke his heart as much as it gave him hope. He would never be free. He still had to go home. "No," he argued bluntly. Too tired & over-stimulated to elaborate. "No, I can't do that, Ilse."
"Can't you? Psh! Any man can."
He wanted to believe her. He wanted so badly for her to be right. He only wanted — Her hand's on my thigh.
Whatever train of thought he once had was broken instantly. He flinched unintentionally and felt embarrassed right after, but she still didn't move fully away from her touch. She didn't seem to think anything of it. She was driving him crazy. He wondered if it was intentional or not.
"I want to make you better, Moritz," she spoke to him in a low voice. No woman — girl — had ever spoken to him in such a way before. His cheeks flushed an impossible red. "I want to help you."
"Ilse— you can't, I- I am... irreparably.... I am- I can’t explain this to you. It's more than I should be saying, and I don't want to startle you and—- I mean, things are just. Going. Badly. They’ve been better, I mean. You know? You don't need to know— I don't need you to-"
"Moritz," she interrupted him, but he was glad she did. She leaned in close to him, and he was suddenly hyper-aware of her heart beating against his shoulder, warm and strong and fluttering like fairy wings.
He waited for her to speak but she didn't. She just leaned in close and let him focus on her breath beat against his neck. Voice trembling and quiet, he pressed, "Yes?"
"Have you ever kissed a girl?"
It dawned on him just as quickly that she must have been able to feel his heart too, hammering away under his ribcage like it wanted to escape. His lips grew dry. He could not do this. He was not ready for this. Maybe someone like Melchior could, but not him — o God not him. He was weak, and he'd fail this test too. Miserably. Even the angel from his dreams had never kissed him.
The music and the people and the talking and the drinking caught up to him all at once. There were no words he could find. He didn't know the answer — the one that was right, the one that was true, the one that she wanted. He sat dumbfounded and red as an apple, and found only the courage to meekly shake his head.
Her body shifted against his and he braced for impact — for this long awaited moment to crash into him and for the world to make sense, maybe, hopefully, but probably not. But that moment did not come and he didn't know if relief or disappointment washed over his whole being. He never could tell what he was feeling.
Instead, she sat up a bit straighter to look him in the eye, a childish glint of mischief in her eyes. He remembered being small with her, playing pirates. What happened to those times? How did they get here now, drunk in the grass, hearts beating together? He was even more aware, suddenly, of all the ways they had changed — in soul, of course. But more apparently, in body.
"Do you know anyone that has?"
The wind was knocked from his sails but he was relieved to shift to this easier topic. He knew she knew more than him on the art of sleeping with and he knew to even breach the topic would make him look like a clueless idiot to her. Which maybe he was.
"Hanschen," fell out of his mouth easily. Hans was the biggest flirt in his class. Everyone knew what he did with the girls. "He told everyone about it. And Melchi has too, I think."
"You think?"
"Yeah."
"What makes you think?"
"He knows —- I mean, he knows more than I do. He must have learned it somewhere."
"Melchi Gabor is a bookworm," she snorted and wiggled closer to him. The alcohol's glued him in place but the fear kept creeping up his throat. The sides of their bodies were pressed flush against each other — shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Heat radiates off of her and warms his cold, tired bones.
"I- that’s true. But… How much can you learn about these things in... books, really? I— It seemed like forbidden subject matter to me. I only learned from Melchior."
"Oh so Melchior's taught you all he knows.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him suggestively & makes herself laugh with it and he wasn't sure why. He smiles, though, to play along.
"In a sense."
"Isn't that sweet?" She said it genuinely but with a teasing, lip-biting smile and he wished so desperately to understand her more. She leans in closer and he can smell the wine on her breath. It was intoxicating. "Would you like to put what you've learned into practice?"
That sends the nerves shooting up his spine, down his limbs to his fingertips, and he feels the buzz pulsing low in him that terrifies him so. What can he say to that? He had tried so hard not to make her an object of his lust. And here she was — asking him to. Everything was so confusing. Even his own thoughts were confusing. Did he want to kiss her? Without a doubt he did. But he was a bumbling, ugly moron and he knew he would only disappoint her. If not, frighten her away altogether.
He sat there dumbly, screaming at himself to SAY SOMETHING SAY ANYTHING SAY YES YOU USELESS FOOL! But he couldn’t find words. It was like his brain had shut itself off. The thoughts kept racing, but the connection to his mouth, his hands, his body had all abandoned him. He didn’t know if he’d be better or worse off sober. All he knew was his cheeks were hot and his jaw was slack, and her blue eyes were burning into him expectantly.
He drew in a small, shuddering gasp as she inched her face closer to his until their lips were only centimeters apart. “Moritz?” she whispered, practically into his hardly-parted lips, and he had never felt so vulgar a sensation in his life.
Unsure of himself and how to proceed, Moritz let the alcohol take over his shrieking nervous system. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and jerked forward, closing the distance between them in the same clumsy, twitchy way he did anything else. Embarrassment washed over him first, at his own eagerness, when she made a small, surprised (but not displeased sound) that faded into a small laugh against his lips. Then — the enveloping warmth of her lips against his and the bliss Melchior had promised crashed into him.
It wasn’t as groundbreaking or lifeshaking as he’d worked it up to be in his head. The earth didn’t split open to drop him into Hell — nor did the clouds part to reveal Heaven all around them. He was simply warm and trembling and closer to another human being than he’d ever been in his life. An unfamiliar sense of security washed over him as her deft fingers slid through his unkempt hair in the dim lamplight of Priapia.
It felt natural, even. To slot his lips against hers and do the dance, the push and pull of a long kiss. He was inexperienced but she led and he was grateful to follow. The thought occurred to him that he had never been handled so gently by anyone in his life.
It was only when she broke the kiss that he felt the inklings of shame creep in on him again. His eyes fluttered open to find her’s looking back, a small (always devilish, or maybe he only thought of her that way) smile playing on her lips. She pressed her forehead to his wordlessly and for a moment, they just sat there, breathing into each other, lingering in the pleasant aftermath of their kiss.
“Th— thank you,” he breathed out once anxiety set in and the silence turned awkward & empty.
That made her laugh, bright and vibrant, and his cheeks grew even redder than before. What had he said? It felt as if everyone always got a kick out of him trying his hardest. He was just some terrible joke. Maybe that’s all the kiss was to her — a big joke. And he was the fool who took it to heart.
“My pleasure, Moritz,” she whispered back, all low and lingering, like she meant it but had said it a hundred times before. She’d changed so much since he’d seen her last. Somewhere along the way, he thought, she had perfected the art of seduction.
With nothing more that needed to be said, she leaned in and connected their lips again. It felt like hours, kissing slowly so as to give him a chance to learn. Hanging heavy in the air was a distant memory of unspoken childhood love & the strange evolution from that to something totally new and strange.
She ran her fingers through his hair, traced the ridge of his ear, the curve of his jaw and down the burning, pulsing skin of his throat. Most all of her movements made him jump, so she didn’t dare let her hands wander too far down — she didn’t want to completely scare the wits out of him. Following her lead, Moritz forced his hands to move - or rather, hover - across her body. One hand wrapped around her waist, pressing his palm into her back - where he dared not move it once he found it there - and the other shakily cradling her face and neck.
Just when it started to feel like an act he could maybe keep up with, she brazenly grazed her tongue across his lips, and his mind scattered a million different directions. A shiver ran through his body and his lips parted with an involuntary moan. He had never heard himself make such a noise before, and it took everything in him not to recoil in humiliation. She seemed only encouraged by it, though — pushing him back a bit with her body while simultaneously pulling him closer with a hand tangled in his hair, and her tongue danced past his lips and slid against his.
Melchior had never mentioned anything like this, so it caught Moritz entirely off guard. It felt downright filthy. Like pure sin. (Nothing in comparison to the things Moritz had read about in that essay — the things he was painfully aware were more within grasp than they had ever been before — but in his limited experience, this was obscene). More than anything, though, he never wanted to stop kissing her or feeling so impossibly close to her. He desperately didn’t want this moment to end. So he experimented, trying clumsily to copy her movements as they kissed with their mouths open. He realized the more the did it, the more he wanted it, despite the indecent vulnerable feeling it gave him. That scared him a little bit.
But then he thought, against his will, about where he had been earlier tonight — maybe yesterday by now . Kicked out of school. Beaten by his father. Nearly playing dead in the snow. When it dawned on him that, without Ilse, he would right now be lying on the ground, blood and brains splattered around for the world to forget til the morning — he felt a bit less afraid of what he was doing now; feeling close to someone, feeling alive for a moment, feeling something at all.
When he held her close to him and kissed her mouth and breathed hard into her, all the voices that hated him inside his head were just a bit quieter. For just a short second. Maybe he didn’t deserve it, but it was the only thing he wanted in the world. If this is what kissing felt like, he would kiss her for eternity. My angel, my angel. He saw now why so many artists had painted her so.
Eternity had not lasted nearly long enough when she pulled away again. This time, his body followed after her without registering it, eyes closed and unready to part, his lips met air for an inch or two before he opened his eyes. This brought another smile to her face, this one softer. More sentimental. Rarely was she adored and wanted so sweetly by a boy. She wanted to love him, to give him every part of her so he knew she did. The strangest thing to her was being unable to tell if he even wanted that from her.
They stayed like that, holding each other and basking in the glow of each other for a long time still. And this time, the shame did not hit him so quickly. He felt comfortable, almost content, though still squirmy and anticipatory of whatever might shatter this temporary paradise. For once in his life, he tried not to worry about what was to come next. He simply sat, listening for her heartbeat, trying to soak in every moment of closeness (before he had to return home).
Ilse traced a painted fingernail under his chin as she brushed her lips against his ear and softly said, “Will you come back home with me?”
A shiver of thrill and dread was sent through his entire body. “Ilse, I—” The bliss he enjoyed so briefly started to give way to anxiety. He knew - already, he knew, there was no way he could give her what she wanted from him. If it was anything like what Melchior explained, there was no way. “I don’t— I can’t— Not that you’re- that I— I mean, it’s nothing to do. With you! It’s— you’re perfect. But I just… Can’t .” He exhaled heavily, embarrassed, and suddenly felt the need to hide from her. He squirmed away from her a bit, pulled his shoulders up, tried to make himself small.
But without hesitation, she scooted towards him and filled the space again. “Can’t what?”
He was all at once too conscious of his body, how weirdly he sprawled and filled the space on the halfway frosted ground. He pressed his knees together and sat up a bit more, overcome with a sudden need for space between them. Only seconds ago, he wanted nothing to become closer to her. Why couldn’t he make up his mind? Why was he so overcome with emotion when people like Ilse, like Melchior, could just let their bodies lead them? What was wrong with him?
“I can’t — I can’t… pleasure you.” The word felt sinful on his tongue so he shook his head and tried again. “I can’t- I don’t think- Even if I tried, I couldn’t… give you.. that . Ilse— I’m sorry. I—” Frustrated with himself, his body, his tongue, he huffed and pulled away from her entirely. He drew his knees up, dropped his head into his hands. Pathetic. Indecisive. Idiot.
This time she didn’t laugh. But the same light-hearted kindness radiated off her as when she did. She let him create the distance, but leaned toward him nonetheless, hoping he knew he could close it anytime. “Moritz,” she sighed so sweetly. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’d certainly let you , if you liked. But you don’t need to. Just come lay with me. Kiss me for awhile.”
That was a tempting offer. It was something he wanted so badly that he wanted to run away, he wanted to tell her he had to be home. Before — before day break, before his father woke, before he fucked this entire thing up with her and she never wanted to see him again. He was drawn to her, in the same way he was the blue angel from his dreams. He wanted nothing more than to say yes.
“I don’t know…” Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
“Oh, stop that, Moritz!” He was grateful for her protests. Grateful for the second chance. “Are you really going to let your nerves get the better of you? You’re not walking home in this state. Not under my watch. Now, come on. Up!” Her tone was firmer now, but always laced with that carefree edge, as she leapt to her feet. He hadn’t felt so drunk until he took her hand and climbed to his feet. Now he was not just drunk, but cold and stiff and his legs were unsteady with an inexplicable wobble. He felt like a newborn calf taking its first steps. He felt a different man than when he’d sat down.
Once they were both standing, Ilse linked her arm with his and walked pressed to his side. He hung his head and watched as they stepped in time with each other. He didn’t consider that he didn’t know where they were going. Only that he was beside Ilse, wherever they went. He mumbled another sincere thank you to her and she cooed lovingly at him like he was some small, adorable pet of hers. Shamelessly, it brought an affectionate warmth to his chest that spread throughout his whole body.
The walk was an unfamiliar blur of tents and houses on shaky foundations, people smoking in the streets, and whores blowing sweet kisses his way. He followed on Ilse’s heel like a loyal dog up the stairs into some place that looked like a boarding house. The question crossed his mind of where they were, who might be here, but he feared the answer enough not to ask. She led him through a door on the first floor and shut it behind them. He didn’t notice much inside but a bed and table, but didn’t take careful note before Ilse’s gentle hands were on his shoulders, sinking him into the bed.
“You should get comfortable,” she said, that mischievous glint in her eyes again. She stood a few feet away from him, reaching behind her to begin unbuttoning her dress. Nervously, he shot his eyes down to the floor to observe himself kicking off his shoes. Uncertain of what else to do, he shrugged his jacket off but refused to remove anything else and too scared to look up at her. Knots twisted inside him at the thought of what he might see yet he still couldn’t stop himself from casting a quick, shameful glance her way.
Of course, in that exact moment, she dropped her tattered dress off her shoulders and his breath caught in his throat to see her stand there in a slip and nothing else. He could tell by the way the fabric fell across her body she wore nothing else underneath. He felt dizzy, his mouth dry. Every one of Melchior’s illustrations flashed in his mind at once and he turned away at lightning speed, guilt and embarrassment flooding his chest.
She seemed to have a sixth sense for his terror — or maybe she could read his mind (she was mystical in that way, he would have believed it if she told him as much) — because she looked directly at him and scoffed playfully. “Relax, Moritz. I’ll stop here — if you insist.”
“That’s not—” he stuttered. He hardly wanted to offend her. But which was more offensive? Looking at her or not? He’d always been told it was sinful and disrespectful to lay eyes on a woman in that way. Ilse was an enigma to him. “I don’t mean to… You do— um. Whatever you want.”
She stepped towards him, sitting directly next to him on the bed and forcing him to scoot over to make room for her. In the meantime, she relished the closeness. Her almost-naked body was far too close for comfort for him to think straight. “Are you comfortable?” she inquired innocently, but there was something sinister underlying the question.
He flushed and was, as always, clueless on what to say. Why was this so difficult? Why was he so flustered? “I mean…” Before he could finish, she reached out to gently loosen his tie around his neck. When he remembered what he’d worn this for, he felt a need to get out of it immediately. But the thought of lying in bed beside Ilse, as naked as she was, made him dizzy and nearly sick. He let out a long breath, let her undress him of that, and settled down in the bed next to her. Her fingers on one hand toyed with a button as they looked into each other’s eyes, heads rested fully on the pillows, eyelids drooping. He barely took notice when she popped the first button loose, but he felt blood rising when she got to the second. “Ilse—” he reflexively stopped her, wrapping his hand around hers to stop her going any further. He meant what he’d said. He couldn’t give her that. Not now, anyway. Afraid to hurt her feelings, he turned onto his side and held onto her hand, thinking of something else to say. He placed an soft kiss to her knuckles, staring at her pale, bony hands instead of her face. In a moment of mortifying vulnerability for him, he let his voice shake, looked back up to her and asked, “What am I going to do?”
And in that moment, her heart had never gone so soft for anyone before. This sweet, sleepy boy that she found weeping in the woods. O how glad she was he’d come with her. She wanted so desperately to fix him, to help him as no one had ever done for her. His fear of being thrust into the world was all too relatable and she knew the tenderness he needed in this moment. She placed a delicate hand to his cheek and leaned in to kiss him softly, briefly. Not nearly as intense as what they had done before. Just a gentle reminder that she was here, and she loved him.
“Don’t worry about that,” she insisted, serious yet soft in her delivery. “Everything will work out.”
And she meant it. She knew it. After all, everything had worked out so far.
He fell silent after that – afraid to admit to her or himself that he didn’t believe her sentiment. Things very rarely worked out in his favor, it seemed. But at this moment, at least, they had. Everything that had happened already happened and he couldn’t go back on any one of them. But they’d also led him here, into a strange bed, half-drunk and half-nude with his childhood love. So could he say he regretted them? It was a complicated issue, indeed. He wished he were Melchior – who could work these things out on the spot. In this moment, Moritz only wanted to pretend none of it existed.
For now, it was just him and Ilse, lying in bed.
Him and Ilse, kissing in bed.
Eventually, him and Ilse, sound asleep in bed. Side by side. Mostly clothed. Pressed close to each other, limbs all twisted and breaths mingling as they dreamt pleasant, shameful dreams of one another.
For now, they rest easy.
For tomorrow hardly mattered.