There isn’t a word for adults who lie with a child. At least, not in this city. Near the woods, where the working folk live, we call themcradle devils.
Niles spares me the details of his first time, spares me the skills he acquired, spares me the many stories he could go into. But he does mention that he was able to support his family, bring food to the table, and provide them with whatever they needed. And he was able to adjust to his new life with nothing but his bare skin, the unwanted touching, stroking, and noisemaking of strangers who could be parents—even grandparents to young Niles. He could handle it all, though the crying fits and notions of suicide lingered on his mind after a long and tiresome night. He persevered. That is until he was sixteen.
“I was reawakened to a new purpose the night Charlotte requested to be serviced by me for three days. She paid handsomely for my favors and even offered to leave me with fine jewelry to take home to my mother. But during those long hours over the course of those three long days and nights, I was quickly made aware that Charlotte was born a man.” Niles’s eyes glaze over, actively being dragged through a memory I’m sure he’d rather forget. “I’ve seen many odd things in my time at that mansion.Many. At the time, this wasn’t the strangest I’d seen, and so I was not bothered. Charlotte stayed in heavy makeup, asking all of the right questions about my life, about my family, all the while fueling me with flattering compliments on the beautiful young man I’d grown to be.”
He tightens his lips and sighs like a man about to tell his wife that he’s been unfaithful. Shame forcing his eyes to close for a moment while he finds his words.
“When I tell you what happened next—you will feel disgust in the softness of your belly and won’t be able to look me in the eye again. All you’ll see is the ugliness of what I have done.” For the first time, he looks human. He looks like a little boy, naive and afraid. There is no Cupid facade. There isn’t even a maniacal patient. Just Niles.
Before I can open my mouth to assure him otherwise, he continues.
“Charlotte left the jewelry and the money for me on the table when our time was up. I was thrilled when I discovered how much she overpaid… Until I saw the necklace that she left for my mother. A gold chain with a medallion that had a baby Cupid shooting an arrow on it. When I flipped it over, it read—Harmony & Charles Offborth.”
He watches me expectantly now, as if I’m supposed to catch on to a hidden clue.
“Charles Offborth is my father. He took the necklace with him when he left us. Charles OffborthbecameCharlotte.”
13. Cupid’s Love
No.
Oh my God.Hot saliva pools under my tongue. My fingernails dig into my thighs. And I’m holding my breath, locking it into my chest cavity. The phantom images of Niles spending three days with a woman with male parts knock around on the inside of my brain. Images of his childhood with his father, watching him chop wood, being tucked in at night. It all came tothis.
“Niles—” My jaw won’t close.Shut your mouth.
“The world has become so ugly, hasn’t it? Love has faded like a puff of smoke from a cigar. It dissipated into the wind. After that, I only knew the hideous kind of love. Like the kind from Charlotte. But real love, the soft and sweet and the kind with feathery wings, it rises from the ashes of the ugly.”
My chest burns with disgust. Not for Niles, but for his father.
“I decided then that was my life mission. My sacred duty. To find true love and dig it up from the ashes.” He delicately paints a sad smile on his lips.
“Is that why you started abducting people? Locking them in a basement for days at a time?”
Suseas told me he had been caught harboring young men and women. Only two people at a time in his basement. The women had been raped, and both individuals had been starved.
“I would match two young people. Ensure they were soul mates. Twin flames, if you will. And then I’d capture them, force them to have no choice but to find love in a dark and hopeless place. The man would find his courage to protect the woman he would soon fall in love with.”
“But why?”
Niles slams his fists down on the mattress. “Because I cannot live in a world where the only love I’ve seen is from the likes of Charlotte!”
And that I can understand.
This was his way of coping with the horror that filled his heart.
“Saying this out loud—can you understand why your mind clung to Cupid?”
Niles furrows his brow and hardens his eyes.“You still don’t believe that I am Cupid,” he accuses with a hint of betrayal in his voice.
“Neither do you.”
He quickly darts his eyes away from mine.“What am I, if not love?” He sighs.
“You’re angry and disgusted with yourself,” I answer him.“You have to forgive not only your father but also yourself. I think the person that you were was an immeasurably greater person than this new identity you have given yourself.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Not every person has the courage and selflessness to put themselves into situations that are far worse than disturbing, especially as a child, just to save their family.” I lean in a little closer.“I’d choose that man for my friend over Cupid any day.”
