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Things had been bad for a long time for everyone, not just me. Everybody's got their own problems but I've got my own unique crosses to bear. I don't like talking about them, though, because that's always liable to cause more trouble than it's worth and it pretty much always ends up with me and my girl getting run out of town. Mostly though, we keep to ourselves. We've got a room in the hotel right about the town saloon. That's where we spend our time and take our meals.
We don't talk much to strangers and other folk. I work hard enough for the both of us to keep us out of trouble. It's a rough life and plenty of hard work, but it's worth it because I love her so damned much, no matter what anybody says about people like her.
Problems always start when folks get nosy, and nosy is how things got that warm night that started with a dusty twilight.
"Welcome back, Mr. Remington," the saloonkeeper greeted me the same way every night. It didn't vary to the point where I felt like it was part of the routine.
"Howdy," I'd respond like a pre-programmed robot, and I'd just head up the stairs to my room to be with my Sylvia.
But it was then, on this blistering hot, fateful night, that the saloonkeeper stopped me, offering me a drink he'd already poured. "On the house, just hang about and chat with me for a few."
"Hang about and chat?"
"Well, you're always runnin' up to your room, barely sayin' hello-goodbye. You're a guest here and I feel like the better I know you, the more I can make you feel at home while you're stayin' here."
"That's awful nice of you," I accepted the drink, a dry rye whiskey, "but we're just quiet folk who like to keep to themselves. Being able to do that makes it home enough."
"Well, you know it's a small place and people get to talking."
"I'm not one for much talking, Mr. Witwer."
"I can see that. Two months here and we've spoken more tonight than in that whole stretch of time."
"I work hard and in the sun. Most days I don't rightly feel like talkin' afterwards."
"I hear that. Most times I get home after a long night here and I just button up tight and don't want to say word one to nobody."
"Mm-hmm." I swigged my drink and was just about to head upstairs to my beloved Sylvia when he said the one thing that could turn my head back to him and his damn fool conversation.
"Well, people been talking about your girl. They been wondering if she's all right in the head. It's mighty peculiar, not seein' her out of her room at all."
I stopped and stared, unsure of what to say. Invariably, it was this line of questioning that was the beginning of the end of my and Sylvia's time in a town, and as many times as I'd lived through it, I'd never come up with a right response. "Is that what they say?"
"People like to talk."
"I suppose they do, don't they? But nothing's wrong with her, thank you very much."
"Well, I'm right sure there isn't anything wrong with her. If'n you say so, I'm on your side."
"Thank you for that, Mr. Witwer."
"But if you want the talk to stop, you might want to bring her down to the social tonight."
"The social?" Everything in my gut was telling me that this would be an extraordinarily bad idea.
"Every once in a while, maybe every three or four months or so, the town council declares an evenin' holiday and we throw a social here in the saloon. Anybody who's anybody'll be here and I'd be right honored if you and your lady attended. When they see how fine and pretty she is, all that talk'll dry up like the creek in August."
"That's a mighty generous invitation, but I'll have to talk to her about it." It would be suicide and I knew it, at least as far as our time in this place was concerned. Aside from that, I really just didn't have the energy to move on from this place just yet. It was always really hard to pack up and escape in the middle of the night, then find a new place, try to settle in and find a new job. It was hard to pick up any work that wasn't manual labor in a situation like that, and I'm not sure how much more of it my body could take. I was constantly aching with a dull pain in all of my joints.
"If she's agreeable, we'll be down here dancin', hootin' and hollerin' all night."
"Much obliged for your invitation."
And with that, I tipped my hat politely and walked slowly up the staircase, wondering if I'd even tell Sylvia of the gracious but impossible invitation.
Sylvia had been staring out the window, teasing out her hair with her favorite boar bristle brush. She was completely hypnotized by the haunting view from our second story picture window. It was the shambles of the old city. Most of the towns left these days were established in the desolate perimeter of the old places. The old places were garbage-strewn wastelands. The skyscrapers we could see had no windows, giving the city all the appearance of a broad smile full of rotted and missing teeth. No matter how many times I laid eyes on it in the light of the setting sun behind it, it made me sick to think that all of that destruction could happen all over again.
How it all happened is a very long story. The short version is that Sylvia's kind was responsible for it, though there aren't many of her kind left to blame for it. My heart grew heavy watching her there, standing against that horizon, looking out over the destruction her kind had caused.
Softly, I called her name, bringing her back from the cold past and into the danger of the here and now.
"Sylvia."
She turned, adding a smile to her face, almost as an afterthought in deference to me.
"Darling."
Her face brightened, she dropped her brush, and we met in the center of the room in a tight embrace. Our love was forbidden and our daily embrace after my return home from work was something out of a cheap book. It rang so true though, that no matter how clichéd it was, it made sense for us. I was her only contact with the outside world. I alone understood her, and I alone loved her. After what her kind did to ours, some could wonder how possible it could be that I loved her so deeply, but you'd just have to see her and know her like I do.
She's soft and delicate with a thick head of brunette hair and alabaster skin. He curves lead you along gently like a scenic, winding road, and she smelled constantly of lilac.
What happened wasn't her fault, but folks in this world have a hard time seeing past that.
I spent time kissing every pale freckle on her tender shoulders before we sat to talk, nose to nose as lovers do.
"It's started, my love. Folks are talkin'."
"Let them. Talk never hurts us."
"Talkin' leads to hurtin', and I'd die if they hurt you."
She smiled sadly and ran her fingers through my hair and then down ever so lightly across my neck.
It gave me a shiver.
"The fella downstairs, Mr. Witwer, wants us to come down to the town social tonight. He says it'll stop all the talking."
"Will it?"
"No. It'll make it worse. He's bein' friendly enough, he just doesn't know you're..."
I hung my head, unable to say it out loud.
"You can say it, go ahead."
"I don't even want to think it. It doesn't matter. You're all I want, what you are is beside the point."
"It makes me smile, seeing you so in love with me." Her eyes locked with mine. She smiled again and kissed my lips.
"I love you," I whispered.
"I know you think it's a bad idea, but can we?"
"Can we what?"
"Can we go? I love you, and you're my everything, but you don't understand how hard it is being locked up here all by myself all the time. I feel like a prisoner."
"Oh, sweetheart. You're not a prisoner. It's just dangerous. If folks found out about us, we'd have to start over all over again."
"I know. But I can't live like this all the time."
My hand crept up her blouse, slowly against the delicate skin of her stomach. "You'll die any other way."
Her other hand pulled up the back of my shirt. The feeling of her palm against the flesh of my back sent a comforting jolt coursing through my body.
We kissed and kissed again. My hand reached up further, cupping her chest.
"Maybe me being dead would be better for you."
"Shhh. Don't even think that."
Our voices had grown more and more hushed as our advances on each other had grown more aggressive. Our worries grew small and disappeared as quickly as our conversation did with the onset of our lovemaking.
Sylvia was always a gentle and passionate love for the most part, but she always seemed to grow claws that would leave deep, red tracks on my body at the height of her climaxing. The sting made me feel alive.
Afterwards, I flopped down onto my back, fanning the sweat on my face, struggling to breath at a normal rate.
Sylvia stood up, putting herself back together, sweat glistening on her naked body. As she pinned her hair up into a high bun, she looked down at me and smiled coyly. "Let's do it anyway."
"We just did."
"No. Let's go downstairs."
"You know that's crazy."
"What's wrong with being crazy once in a while? I'm going crazy cooped up in here all the time anyway. I need to see people."
"Aren't I enough for you?"
"You are. You're everything I need in a man. But I need people, too. And fun and adventure. More than anything I need to dance. Will there be dancing?
"I expect."
"Then we have to go. It's not like they can tell anything just by looking at me. It always takes a little more than that to catch on and we won't be down there long enough for that. One dance and that's all."
"You never know, love. There's folk who can tell one of your kind a mile away just by looking at you."
"How?"
"I don't know. Instinct or something. Same reason folks like you spook animals sometimes."
"I want to risk it. For one dance. What's the worst that could happen? We'd have to leave again?"
"A lot worse could happen than that."
"We'll see, won't we?"
This was not a good idea.
In the back corner of the saloon was an acoustic three-piece band accompanied by an old ragtime piano that gave the place the feeling of the sort of place you'd imagine if they still played those old western movies. The whole town was there, most of them were congregating in the center of the room, dancing and carrying on. There were some card games in the corner opposite the music men, and the bar was packed from one end to the other. I don't think I'd ever seen Mr. Witwer's place so jumping with life.
I was hoping to be inconspicuous, but Sylvia held everyone's attention with each and every step down the grand staircase. She was every bit as radiant as the first time I saw her and I could feel the eyes of every other man in the room beaming right at her. If there's one thing they did right, it was that they made them as beautiful as her.
It wasn't long before we found ourselves in the middle of the dance floor, Sylvia had whispered into my ear her deep insistence that I dance with her and who was I to refuse? I was no dancer, and to be honest, the thought of moving slow in time with Sylvia in front of all these people made my stomach turn just a little bit. I was never a dancer and never fancied it. The only kind of dancing I liked was when I was alone with Sylvia and we could press ourselves up close to each other, close our eyes, and sway to the music in our hearts. It didn't feel as pure in front of people, like it was for show, and that part of it always turned my stomach just a little bit. But this is what she wanted, and making her happy is always what made me most happy.
We pressed up against each other like we were alone, upstairs, and hidden from prying eyes. I lost myself in the swaying, pretending as hard as I could that we weren't surrounded by all these townsfolk.
It was hard to shut them all out knowing full well that if they knew what I knew about the woman in my arms, they'd at the very least do their best to try to kill us. I tried even harder to put the heat and sting of all the proverbial torches and pitchforks I'd almost been ended by in the last three years out of my mind as well.
I took in a deep breath of her perfume from the back of her neck, relocating the thoughts in my head to her and the here and now. It was then that I noticed that the music the band was playing was much too fast for our slow dance. Always to the beat of our own drum, I thought. My God, how I love her.
Either she read my mind or I must have accidentally said that last part out loud because she lifted herself up and brought her lips up to my ear, brushing them against it as she whispered gently, "I love you, too."
We danced right through another pair of up-tempo pieces before I grew tired. "I need a drink."
She kissed my cheek, "I'll be right here. There's still a dance or two left in me."
The bar was friendly and inviting. I ordered a tall, cool draught of beer and turned, sipping into the foamy head before peering at my Sylvia, alone in the center of the dance floor.
Alone, she kept better time with the music, moving back and forth with the beat. It wasn't long before she caught the eye of one of the young men in the crowd. He bowed his head politely and I could tell he'd asked her for a dance. Her eyes met mine from across the room; she could feel my worry. Letting people close to her was not something I did lightly, but in this case it might seem more suspicious to not let them dance. It was a bad idea, but causing a fuss would be worse. Sure, maybe I'd be mistaken for a jealous lover, but it wouldn't take much to add two and two together with me hiding her up in her room all the time.
Hesitantly, I nodded to her, giving her the okay, and she bowed and graciously accepted his invitation. The music began again, a slow number this time. They danced as close as he felt like he could get away with, their stance was quite formal and the dancing rigid. I tried my hardest to swallow all of the bad feelings that go along with watching another man dance with your lady. It was just a dance, but it still worried me and set off all the base instincts of the beasts us civilized folk work so hard to repress.
You can imagine my infuriated confusion when the music ended and she leaned in, right close to his ear and seemed to kiss him on the cheek and whisper something in his ear. I about boiled over before I realized it all the girls seemed to be doing it and she must have just been thanking him. I quickly knew she must have told him much more than that when he shoved her hands off of him, disgusted with something. It didn't even register. I took another draught of my beer.
I thought nothing of it, she smiled at me, just standing there, waiting for something.
It wasn't until I noticed that the beau she'd danced with had whispered into the ears of a pair of his mates, and they turned to whisper to their mates, that I realized that a commotion was being made. The moment they laid a hand on her, I slammed my beer down, and made a move to intervene, but I was across the room and word of what she was had clearly spread like wild fire.
I shouted my entreaties, but they fell on deaf ears. No one cared. She was responsible and the law was clear. They lifted her up into the crowd but she was completely calm. In fact, I was confident she was smiling right at me.
Six of them it took to keep me from rescuing her. Six of them to pull me back and hold me down through all of my trashing. I'm sure I damaged more than a couple of them pretty bad, I wasn't above biting, and scratching, and tearing, and pulling. It was always my philosophy that anything worth fighting for was worth fighting dirty for. And Sylvia was the most precious thing in my life. If I had the means and the strength I'd've fought a hundred men. But those six foiled me.
"Leave her alone..."
"Shut it, you damned collaborator."
"I'm not--"
--a meaty fist shut my mouth for me and everything went black.
I awoke some hours later.
Alone.
On the outskirts of town.
From there I could see beyond the saloon we'd lived in and into the town square where they'd hung her from the neck until dead. That was the sentence for anyone of her kind found after the purge.
My heart broke. Replicant or not, I loved her and all I could feel were hot tears on my face and sadness in my stomach.
After a while, I rose from my prostrate position, the tears still came, but I didn't notice them as much. I spent a time swaying in the breeze like a dead tree, wondering if I could get to her and cut her down before they cut me down. It wasn't likely, but I wasn't going anywhere without her.
One foot in front of the other.
That's the way things always started, that's the way they end.
Each step that brought me closer to her beautiful, lifeless body made me wonder why she did this.
Was it too much for her?
Was she doing it for me?
I'll never know her mind on this Earth.
May as well find out in the next one.
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