Alice's Secret

“Can you keep a secret?”

Alice lifted her head, shifting her attention from the salad she was pushing around on the plate in front of her to the man standing at her side.

Justin leaned close, his body curved over Alice, his breath carrying traces of malted wheat as his words brushed across her skin.

Alice narrowed her eyes and pointed at the chair across from her. 

Justin straightened his body away from her to pull the chair out, the steel feet of the black legs scraping across the concrete of the coffee shop patio. He dropped his long body into the stiff seat, tipped it back onto two legs, and propped his feet on the edge of the table.

Alice rolled her eyes and gave up, pushing away the salad she had no interest in. This conversation was happening.

“What’s your secret?” she asked.

“The question is, what’s your secret?” 

He had the nerve to wink at her. One slow, deliberate blink of one dark brown eye.

Alice clenched her fingers, stilling them as they itched to pick up her fork and pluck out that dark brown eye.

“I don’t have a secret,” she said. 

This was a lie. Everyone had a secret. Usually more than one. 

“We both know that’s not true,” Justin said.

“Confirming a secret would damage the integrity of the secret,” Alice replied. “A secret should only be shared, or even acknowledged with oneself.”

She expected this to shut him up, to end the fledgling conversation. Alas, expectations are often different than reality.

“Two can keep a secret.”

“Only if one of them is dead.”

“Or well paid.”

Alice narrowed her eyes at the man sitting so casually across from her. His words were far from casual. What did he know? What did he think he knew?

Justin lifted his feet and dropped them to the ground, the chair legs following suit. He leaned forward and picked up Alice’s discarded fork, speared a juicy bit of chicken from her neglected salad, and placed it in his mouth.

“You’re not hungry?” he asked. 

Alice’s stomach growled in response. 

Justin lifted the edges of his mouth in a smirk and then continued eating the salad, never looking away from Alice’s face as he lifted the fork repeatedly.

Alice couldn’t help it. Her eyes followed the fork, watched the morsels slip between his lips, past the white flash of his teeth. She was painfully aware of her own teeth in her mouth, her tongue running across the tips as saliva began to pool in her mouth. She swallowed and looked away, her eyes landing on the umbrella over the neighboring table.

Justin laughed.

This was unacceptable.

“What do you want?” Alice snapped.

Justin leaned close, his elbows on the table, his chin propped on his hands. He had won. Alice’s snappy question contained no denial. 

She realized too late her implied acknowledgment of a secret. Now she could only hope he didn’t know her real secret. Now she could only guard it, keep it safe from him. 

What if he already knew it?

Alice reached up to brush away the sheen of sweat glazing her brow. She did not look at her fingers, did not dare confirm that the sweat was clear.

“What do you want?” Justin Alice’s question back to her.

The question drifted across the air between him, again carrying the residue of the beer he consumed an hour ago, accented now with chicken, vinegar, basil. Underneath the substances he had taken in was him. Rich. Tangy. A thread of iron.

Alice clenched her jaw, pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. A trickle of her own blood dripped into her mouth.

This did not help to calm her. 

She turned her head and pulled in a long stream of Justin-free air through her nose, pushed the air oh-so-slowly out of her mouth.

“I want you to get up and walk away.” She was proud of how level her voice was, the peace, the calm, the total lack of caring conveyed by her tone.

“What will you give me to do that?” Justin asked. “I mean, I’d be happy to just go, but I’m carrying this information that you probably don’t want me to share. I might forget if I’m not properly motivated.”

“I’m not convinced you have any information at all.” Again, her voice was stable, steady.

The steadiness shattered when Justin picked up the knife she had not needed to cut the chicken she did not eat. He tapped the serrated blade against the meat of his thumb, a rhythmic thump, thump that pounded into Alice, driving the pace of the heart in her chest. 

Her eyes were trapped again, her gaze locked on the flesh as the cold metal tapped, tapped, tapped against it. One tap too many. Two teeth broke through the thin barrier of Justin’s skin, pulling up two tiny beads of bright red blood.

The bright burst of iron poured through the air, flooded Alice’s nose. She couldn’t hold her lips closed, her teeth slipped free, eager to finally, finally eat.

Justin dropped the knife, the blade clattering against the empty ceramic plate in the center of the table. He pushed back, suddenly eager to be away from Alice. He had only a moment to consider that he had pushed Alice and her secret one step too far.

She was on him before he could stand, her legs straddling his own, pinning him in the sturdy embrace of the steel chair. Her body curved over his, her head tucking in, bringing her mouth to the tender flesh under his ear. 

“You’re right. I have a secret. I’m so sorry, Justin, but I can’t let you have my secret, I have to take it back.”

She closed the sliver of distance, her teeth sinking deep, pulling free the blood that had taunted her from under his skin. She took it all, took every drop that could possibly betray her later. He tasted far better than the salad.