“What happened?”
“I lost a soul. She wouldn’t come with me. Her lover shot her, twice. Fatal wounds. Her children survived, but she wouldn’t leave them.”
Your voice sounded wooden. It was your reaction to stress. You pulled away and spoke about stuff without any emotion. I wanted to give you a hug, so I stepped out of my tub of water and went over to you. You sat back and let me embrace you.
“I’m sure you did your best,” I said.
“It’s probably similar to when a surgeon loses a patient. They must wonder if the outcome would have been different if they were more skilled at their job. Or had more information.”
“You’ve been doing this a long time. You’re probably at the top of your game.”
You gave me a tired, sad smile.
“Why won’t you let me touch your feet?” you asked, probably just trying to change the subject.
“Because they’re gross.” I didn’t even like touching my feet and they were mine.
“Your feet have purpose and your arches are beautiful. I know something about how to massage feet.”
“I know, I know, your masseur lover.” I rolled my eyes to tease you.
Your smile turned mournful.
“I’d let you.” I’d do anything to make you feel better.
You patted the couch next to you. I’d kind of ended up in your lap. “Why don’t you lie back and let me rub your feet? I have a story to tell you, not a good one.”
“What’s it about?”
“It’s a story about my mother. Lena.”
You stood for a moment to dim the lights and light three candles. You’d once told me three was a sacred number. One was an experiment, two announced your intent, and three compelled your desires.
When you sat back down, I placed my feet in your lap. They always hurt. Like most dancers, I had chronically sore feet. I could sometimes ignore it, but after a performance especially, I was severely reminded.
You started with my left foot, gently tugging each toe in a circular motion to loosen the joints while lightly squeezing their callused pads. By the time you reached the ball of my foot, where most of my weight and therefore pain was concentrated, I felt a lot more relaxed, and that’s when you began, in your deep melodious voice, to tell me the story of how you’d lost your body.
“I was born in 18 B.C. My mother had taken a human lover, a Germanic chieftain, and birthed me and my younger brother both. This was when Rome’s emperor was consolidating power and seeking to expand their empire. They were eyeing Germanic territories in particular. Skirmishes had already begun, and as the ultimate gesture of allegiance to the Roman emperor, my father offered his two young sons as tributes. This did not please Lena.”
“Tributes? What does that mean? Like, sacrifices?” The concept seemed so foreign to me, the idea of pledging your children for the sake of loyalty.
“More like royal hostages. Well-fed, but prisoners, nonetheless. In Rome, I was trained in capital customs, given a military education, and drafted into the Roman Army. At a relatively young age, I was put in command of an auxiliary unit and sent to quell a revolt in a Roman province. Because of my unique abilities, I was often injured, but never killed.”
“Unique abilities,” I interrupted again. “What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t die,” you said and studied my reaction.
“Like, you had some invincibility power?”
“My mother’s bloodline allowed for me to heal very quickly in ways that humans cannot. There are ways to kill us, but it is very cumbersome.”
Us.How many more of you were there? Were you like an endangered species or were there millions more? Your thumbs worked together to turn the soles of my feet into putty. I would have moaned in appreciation, but this didn’t seem like the time. You paused rubbing and asked politely, “May I continue?”
“Yes, to the story and the massage.”
You let go of one foot and started on the other. The difference between them was astonishing. One felt loved and adored, the other cold and abandoned.
“I told you before, I had a lover. He was…” You dropped your head so that I couldn’t see your face so well in the dim lighting, but your voice was thick with emotion. “He was very dear to me.”
