The Taking of Beverly Clay

Beverly Clay finished the report with a simple keystroke. The document which had taken her attention for the last two weeks was mostly complete, only a quick edit here and there remained. Letting herself have a moment of relaxation, she turned around in her chair and looked down from her second floor office out over Stephen Avenue. It was a street doubling as a mall and always somewhat busy. Lunch neared and the wide street grew crowded with a horde of business and trades people. On any given Friday she would be one of those people, usually heading to Subway with one of her coworkers, but not this Friday. Her ritual had to be cancelled in order to make sure she finished the financial report on time.

For a moment the endless blob of ties, jackets and reflective safety-tape parted. Her eyes fell to a person standing in the middle of the break, looking up at her with a handsome, bright smile. Oddly, the crowed seemed not to notice him. Everyone stepped around him as if they somehow knew he was there, visible but not. Her eyes flicked away from the blob, blinked, and looked back down out of curiosity and saw the surge had consumed the man. Her eyes searched for him, looking at all the vaguely different faces. He was gone.

Behind her powdery blue eyes, memories began to stir. That man, who had been standing in the middle of the parted crowed, reminded her of someone. Little by little she trudged through the years and decades until she found him.



The memory was of a park with a pristine, roughly circular, lake in front of her. There was a forest of pines and leafy trees on her left and a smattering of poplars on her right. She remembered exactly where she was: Carburn Park. She also remembered it was only weeks away from her seventeenth birthday, putting the date somewhere in the month of July.

She wore a push-up bra under her plain white t-shirt tucked into a pair of tight blue jeans. She had let her long brown hair free behind her shoulders. She hardly ever wore makeup, but she cheeks had been accentuated by a very thin layer of blush. Her whole attire had been picked out precisely to make her more attractive to her strange friend.

Almost a year had gone by since Damien came into her life, yet it was only recently Beverly realized she had an attraction to him. At first he had been the Handsome Stranger stereotype; after that he became the Handsome Stranger with a Name; then he shifted to being Damien the Friend and Confidant; and now he had become Damien her Beloved Enigma.

She saw him sitting on his usual bench wearing the same clothing he always wore: a black suit jacket, a collared white dress shirt buttoned up all the way, a pair of black slacks and polished dress shoes. His brown hair was short and neatly combed, and his handsome white cheeks shaved smooth. He never wore adornments or accessories, even back then she bet he did not sport a single tattoo.

Behind him, a set of tall and thick bushes hid the bench from the main path. The dark green leaves flittered and whispered in a soft breeze.

Damien noticed her right away and lifted his hand in greeting. Beverly blushed. Even from the edge of the lake she could feel his eyes penetrating her, and wondered what he was looking for. That was part of his mysterious charm. Even now, though, his penetrating gaze made her slightly nervous. He did so much to her: he made her happy and woke the butterflies in her stomach, made her feel pretty and even aroused her, but he also scared her. He scared her because she did not know who he really was. Whenever she asked personal questions about him, Damien effectively managed to derail the conversation. He also never seemed to change. He always wore the same outfit, constantly had his hair in the same style and never, ever, appeared the least bit disheveled.

As she stepped onto the dock, Damien’s smile widened to show his handsome pearly whites and stood up. He opened his arms and swept her into a tight hug, kissed her cheek and then gently nuzzled it. “Hello my sweet Starlight.”



She swore under her breath as the phone pulled her back to reality out of the pleasant childhood memories of a man who might have been her first love. She reached out, grabbed the receiver and pulled it up to her ear.

“Beverly Clay, Financial Division, how can I help you?” She asked.

“Hey hun.” Ian’s greeted. Despite fighting with the sounds of traffic under his voice, Beverly could hear his smile. “How are you doing?”

Beverly sighed and glanced back down at the churning ocean of humanity moving up and down Stephen Avenue. She reached up and rubbed her forehead feeling the possible start of a headache. “Stressed.”

“Still working on the report?” He asked.

“I’m basically done now. More or less. Maybe a last draft. And this time I do mean last. She sighed. I’m so done with this damned thing, it said. “What’s up with you?”

“Heading to a short meeting.” Ian said. “Hey, it’s been a little while since we had a decent relaxing night. I was thinking we could have one of those tonight.”

Beverly closed her eyes and smiled, nodding as if he could see, there was nothing more she wanted at the moment than to be able to spend a night with her love and fall asleep in his arms. “Sure. Maybe cuddle up on the couch and watch movies?”

“We could do that.” Ian agreed. “I’ll get some take out and a bottle of wine. We can eat a good dinner, watch a few movies and maybe take a nice hot bath together. How does that sound?”

“That sounds perfect.” She grinned betting he could hear it, and maybe more, in her voice. “Maybe I’ll have something special for you.”

“I like surprises.” He chuckled. “Especially if they involve you.”

“Cute.” She said. “Anyways, I have a bit left to do. I’ll give you a call when I’m on my way home, okay?”

“Sure. Don’t work too hard.” Ian said. “Love you babe.”

“Love you too.” She said and set the receiver back down on the cradle.

         Beverly turned her attention back to the report. Slowly, over the next hour, she read it line-by-line looking for any grammatical, data and figurative errors. Her eyes touched on the second-to-last paragraph when the phone rang. She picked the receiver up and greeted in a mechanical tone. “Beverly Clay, Financial Division, how can I help you?”

         “Hello Starlight. How are you?”

         Her mouth opened to instinctively greet her father, one of two people who used that pet name. She froze. It could not be her father: he was dead, cancer took him. “W-Who is this?”

         “It is Damien.” Said the kind voice which paused giving her long enough to let the name sink in. “How are you, love?”

         Beverly’s neck shot to the side and her eyes fell to the street below. Even though the noon hour had passed and the surging ocean of people had vanished, Stephen Avenue was still bustling with activity. Her eyes swept over each person, looking at the head of everyone talking on a cellphone not knowing what to expect—not knowing what Damien would look like now.

         “I came back for you Bev, just like I said I would.”

The headache threatening to make an appearance did. She reached up and massaged her temple with her thumb and forefinger. “This isn’t funny. Who is this?”

“I am Damien.” He said calmly, softly. “Are you ready to go?”

“Are you serious?” Beverly asked feeling anger well up from inside her after coming to grips the voice did belong to Damien. “Are you serious? Are you fucking serious? I don’t hear anything from you for twenty-three years and now, out of the blue, you decide to call me?”

For a long moment the other end of the line was silent. Beverly waited for Damien to answer, her fury demanded he answer, and when he did his handsome voice only managed to scrape against her nerves like nails on a chalkboard. “I told you I would come back for you, Beverly.”

“How dare you!” She hissed, massaging her pounding head. “How dare you vanish from my life and pop back in when you choose! Don’t ever contact me again.”

She slammed the receiver down, sighed and closed her eyes.



She knew something was wrong by the way he held her in his arms. There was a slight coolness to it and a distance she had never felt with him before. Her heart fluttered with panic for a moment. She broke the hug and took a step back looking up into his face. Her eyes took in his handsome features: strong chiseled chin, perfect nose, and deep mysterious brown eyes. He looked as happy and calm as he always did.

“Damien.” Beverly whispered. She reached out and took one of his hands. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” He said, reached up and gently stroked her smooth cheek with the back of his other hand.

She had been blessed a sort of immunity against acne and blemishes for the most part. Her outbreaks were minimal and never lasted more than a couple days; easily hidden under a bit of cover up. Her cheeks never saw more than one or two pimples at any given time.

“You brought friends.” Damien said looking over a steep bump down the way she had come.

That was one of his many talents: he knew things, like when her friends were around. She glanced over her shoulder, neither one of her friends could be seen, and turned back nodding. She never lied to him; in her mind she never had reason to. While he did omit certain things, like who he was, Damien never actually outright lied to her about anything.

“They’re at the first lake fishing.” She said. “We don’t have to worry about them.”

“I understand.”

Beverly blushed knowing why she was here. Over the past few weeks she had been thinking of him in a strange new light. He was no longer Damien the Beloved Enigma, but the object of her young, still very strange, desires and lusts. At first the thought of sex with Damien made her laugh. Not because she was young and only started to become overtly interested in such things, but because he was older and she was young and impressionable. In those early days, she waited for him to make a move and waited to run away screaming. He never made a move on her, not even one single underhanded come-on. Now, after making up her mind, she decided to make the first move.

She took a look around, making sure no one was in earshot, and turned to him meekly. “Damien, we’ve been talking for almost a year…” She said searching quickly for the words she had rehearsed over and over again in her mind. “…and I think—no, I know—I love you. Will you be my boyfriend?”

For the first time ever, Damien’s handsome smile faltered. He glanced down at the ground, his shoes seemed interesting, and back up to Beverly’s face. She felt cold horror radiating out from her stomach, quickly taking over her whole body and sapping the strength from her legs.

“Beverly, I have to go.” He whispered. “This will be our last meeting for a while.”

“What?” She asked more horrified than confused. “Why?”

“I told you after we first met that I couldn’t stay around forever.” He said without a smile. “And this is the moment I must leave you.”

Shock rippled through her body. Her heart fluttered painfully and skipped beats. “Why? Because I told you I love you? I can take it back! I lied! I don’t love you!”

Damien reached up and placed his hand lightly on her cheek shaking his head. She nuzzled it. “It is not that. There are things I must do before I come back for you.”

“Come back for me?” She whispered trembling. Her heart was in pieces scattered at her feet. “You’re coming back for me?”

“Oh Beverly…” He whispered tilting his head and looking into her blue watery eyes. “It took me a long time to find you and I’m not going to let you go, but there are things I need to do first, and events that must happen.”

“What then?” She asked, tears of fear and teenage heartache drooling down her soft, smooth, skin. “Can I love you then?”

Damien reached out and placed his warm hand on her side and gently squeezed, his handsome almost ever-present smile returning. “Yes, my sweet Starlight, your love would please me very much. Now you must go.”

He pulled his hand away slowly, never losing his soft touch, and stepped back beside the bushes, obscuring him from Beverly’s two friends as they crested the small hill at the front of the lake.

“I don’t want to.” She whispered, crying at the thought of losing him from her life for even an hour. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know. But Beverly? I will be back to collect you, and we can let our love flourish. Now, please Starlight, go.” Damien said. “And be ready when I come back for you.”

Crying, broken hearted but hopeful, Beverly nodded and turned around. Her two friends, one male and the other female, waved in greeting. She wiped her eyes futilely, and walked to them slowly.

“What happened?” The girl asked.

“Who were you talking to?” Her male friend asked almost at the same time.



Beverly pulled herself from the hurtful memory, felt tears stinging her eyes and trailing down her cheeks. That had been the last day she had contact with Damien for twenty-three years. Eventually her memories of him faded. His handsome and perfect face clouded, followed by his gentle smile and his soft voice, and then even his eyes vanished. When that happened, he was lost to decades of other memories.

For a month after her friends talked about the strange relationship that must have ended that day, but no one knew what happened. She never talked about Damien, never even mentioned his name, the dynamics of their relationship, or how deep it went. No one could even remember seeing him, ever, except for the young male friend who had been there that day. His recount of the situation was strange, no one believed him and he eventually didn’t believe what he saw either. He swore he saw something shimmering in front of her and move back towards the bushes.

Until Damien was finally lost in the murk of time, she unconsciously compared her boyfriends to him and never seemed satisfied. After finishing university and starting her career, men and love fell to the wayside. Even though she forgot Damien. But her heart did not. It wanted to go into hiding, never to be hurt like that again.

Ian broke through that self-imposed shield, grabbed her dead heart and massaged it back to life. They met in a small neighborhood pub bordering on a dive, both wanted to be alone to their thoughts, their fears and their loneliness. He saw her and started talking, and when Beverly made overt signals she wanted to wallow in her own self-pity, he kept pushing until she broke. They drank a bottle and a half of red wine that night, including whatever else they had beforehand, and while drunk shared a wonderful and intimate conversation. Two days later, after the hangover subsided, they went for dinner. Two months later, Ian had fallen in love with her and she was starting to fall in love with him. Now, almost two years after that initial chance meeting, Beverly wanted no one else in her life.

Hearing Damien’s voice hurt. Even after twenty-three years her heart remembered him and ached for his gentle touch, even just a soft swipe of her cheek, or a look into his deep brown eyes.

Sitting at her desk, staring passed the computer screen into nothingness, Beverly wondered what she would have done three years ago. Would she have gone to him willingly? Would there still have been this horrible grudge for leaving her? Neither of those questions meant anything. That was three years ago and this is now. Ian is her mate, her lover, her partner. Damien was nothing more than a memory from a young girl—she was nothing more than a girl back then—with no other influence on her life today.

After the message Beverly finished scanning over the last couple of paragraphs without really reading what was on the screen, saved it one last time and sent the whole document to the printer. She retrieved the document, walked it up to the CEO’s office and handed it to him personally and requested permission to leave early, citing she was not feeling well. He accepted the document, thanking her, and gave her approval to leave.

When she arrived back at her office, she picked up the phone, dialed Ian’s number and left a quick message: “Something just happened to me and I need you. I’ve handed the report in and going home early. Now. Can you forgo getting dinner and wine, at least for a bit, and come talk with me?”

Beverly called for a taxi, collected her things and went outside to wait.



         Half way home, Beverly realized she did not have any cash on her. The taxi had a built in credit and debit machine, but they were systems she never trusted. She figured it would be easy to double-swipe her card, or have something attached to the device to read her information, so she asked if the driver could make a detour to the Mac’s near home.

         Even before walking in through the glass doors, she noted the store was practically empty. An Arabic clerk standing behind the cash register with his arms crossed, and a young, very pregnant, woman hovering over the water and juice cooler doors. A loud ear-spitting screech came from the door when she opened it.

         The clerk nodded to her and turned his attention back to the woman trying to decide on what was best for her baby. Beverly went down the main isle to the back of the store, hung a right in front of the slushy-station and went to the corner where the cash machine set. She took out what she would need for the cab from memory, and a little more for dinner later on.

She turned around to take the same L-shaped route back out to the cab and froze. There, standing at the turn-off from the main isle, was Damien. Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to say something only to find there was nothing to say. Surprise and fear stole over her. She could not believe Damien was here, now, standing in front of her. How did he know she was here at this Mac’s? Of course, she could answer that question all on her own: he just knew. He always did. That was part of his charm back then, how he seemed to know everything, and yet now it just frightened her. It seemed, now, as if he was stalking her.

He had not aged a day.

Back when Beverly was sixteen, the style of dress and cleanliness Damien had about him was one of the aspects which attracted her. As she aged so did her preferences, and Damien seemed to know, and adopt, that current style. He wore a light blue dress shirt not quite buttoned to the top and a pair of neatly pressed khaki slacks. His hair was the same, even having the same style, but his cheeks were no longer bare and neatly shaved. He wore a bit of stubble, still neat and tidy as Ian did. It was attractive, and though chaffing at times, she enjoyed the texture and feel. She looked down at his feet and saw a pair of sandals.

“It’s good to see you.” He said. “I have missed you, Beverly.”

“Are you stalking me?” She asked and looked from him to the clerk after noticing his attention changed from the woman looking at the huge variety of juices and waters over to her. He watched with feigned interest.

Damien’s soft smile never changed. “No my sweet darling. I told you I would come back for you, my sweet Starlight.”

“Why are you here?” She asked noticing actual interest forming in the clerk’s eyes, glanced over to the woman as saw her nervously watching them.

“I’m here to take you, my love.” He said. “Are you ready?”

Her brow furrowed as her anger and fear rose with the hair on the back of her neck. But there was caution, too. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Beverly fled down the aisle in front of the coolers, barely skirting passed the pregnant woman without knocking her flat against the glass doors, down the magazine isle, back outside through the doors, and around to the passenger side of the cab. She looked up, only for a brief moment, and saw that Damien stood looking at the ATM machine scratching the back of his head while both the clerk and the woman stared out at her. She got into the cab and the man resumed over the final leg of their trip.

He looked up into the rearview mirror only once at Beverly. “You don’t look well.”

“Must have been something I ate.” She said shortly.





         The cab stopped in front of Beverly’s condo. She paid the driver and went inside. Immediately she put in her PIN into the beeping alarm, disarming it for the moment, locked the deadbolt against unwanted visitors, and rearmed the device. If Damien knew where she lived, there was no doubt he did, he would trigger the alarm and the police would be at her front door in minutes.

Immediately she heard banging. It wasn’t coming from outside the front door, the back door or any of the windows. It was coming from next door. That was the only downfall for what appeared to be the perfect home: paper-thin walls. The sound stopped a moment later, after kicking off her shoes.

She was not worried about Ian. They had exchanged keys (he has the alarm code) after the first six months of dating. She hoped, walking into the living room, he might have gotten her message and checked the answering machine. The console told her she had zero messages.

Feeling safe, she tossed her purse onto the chaise lounge and flopped herself down on the couch for a moment and tried rubbing her headache away. Her thoughts went back and forth between Damien and Ian, hoping the mystery man would not pay her a visit while also hoping Ian would call.

She did have feelings for Damien. Strong feelings which bubbled up from the depths of the memories. He left so suddenly and didn’t come back as he promised. To her coming back was a month, a year or maybe even a couple, but not twenty-three years later. That was a whole life time. She held on to the memory of him for most of those years, and cursed herself hundreds of times for doing so. Beverly knew she would suffer for a while until those feelings faded back into obscurity, and she took pride in knowing Ian would be there every step of the way.

“Beer.” She muttered, grunted as she sat up on the couch and pushed herself back onto her feet.

She walked towards the kitchen and glanced up the steep stairs to the second level feeling a little paranoid, half expecting to see Damien standing at the top of the stairs with his creepy, ever-present smile. The top of the stairs was empty. She glanced into the perfectly positioned mirror that showed her the entire second floor landing and saw that it, too, was empty. Ian had put the mirror there after they had run into each other several times as they passed.

Upon entering the well-stocked kitchen, she went straight to the fridge and took out one of Ian’s beers. She wasn’t a fan, but in a pinch it would do. She cracked the top and took a healthy quaff, burped, and chuckled at herself. It was cold, and right now, it tasted like ambrosia.

When the phone rang, Beverly jumped in surprise and cursed under her breath, both at the phone and at her own jumpiness. She walked back into the living room and sat down on the couch while looking at the Caller ID. For a moment she thought Damien would be the name, instead it was Ian’s cell. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and answered the call right before the machine took over.

“Hello?” She asked.

It would be Damien using Ian’s phone, and he would ask if she was ready to go.

“Bev?” Ian asked. “You okay?”

She did not quite know how to answer such a simple question. “I don’t know.”

“Hun…” He muttered with a long pause. “What’s going on?”

“A very old friend of mine I haven’t seen since I was sixteen called me today at the office, and I just need to be with you right now.” She said and quickly added: “But I can wait if you’re busy.”

“I’m not busy.” He said kindly with a definitive hint of concern. “I just have to grab my car from the office and I’ll be right over.”

“You’ll have to put your code in.” She stated.

Ian paused. “You never put the code in during the day. What else happened?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here.” Beverly said.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Ian stated firmly with a trace of caution in his voice.

“Okay. See you in bit.” She said and hung up.

She set the phone back into the cradle and relaxed as she drank the beer. She was not a lightweight drinker, but with the lack of lunch and the stress from the report and Damien, her head started to slightly swim.

Even talking to Ian for that short span made her feel a lot better, if only for a moment. She needed to talk to him about Damien, and that thought that set her on edge—a new kind of edge. Except in passing, they had never talked about their ex’s; she didn’t know how Ian would react. There was nothing tangible she could show Ian in regards to Damien, but she had diaries with entries all about him. She needed Ian to read them, if only to understand how much he meant to her.

She got up and went to the stairs; after checking the mirror, she bounded up the second floor stairs holding a full bathroom and two spare bedrooms, then up to the third floor containing the master bedroom and her office. Her diaries were in a box in the back of her closet marked MEMORIES.

Beverly stepped into her bedroom and gasped, stumbling to a halt. Damien was standing next to her bed with that damned smile on his lips; hands were clasped behind his back. A cold chill of fear washed down her back as she glanced towards the hallway. The house was silent. The alarm had not gone off.

Damien took a step forward and Beverly took a step back. The smile on his face was no longer handsome. It was the same old smile, but it scared her right down to the core.

“It’s time, Starlight.” He said and stepped forward again.

“How did you get in here?” She asked stepping back into the doorway of her bedroom.

Damien brought his hands from behind his back and extended them expectantly, as if she was to step forward and put hers on top. “I told you I would come back for you.”

Beverly shook her head. “You need to go. Please just go.”

“Not without you.”

He stepped forward and Beverly took two steps back, dangerously close to the top of the stairs. Her heart crashed against the inside of her chest and all that existed was the need to get away from Damien.

Finally Damien’s smile broke. His lips fell as close to a frown as she had ever seen. He tilted his head and looked at her, confused. He dropped his hands to his side and took a step forward. “I-I don’t understand.”

“I have a life! I have someone I love! I want a family! Where were you a decade—two decades—ago?” She cried and took another step back.

Expecting hardwood, her foot only found air. She pulled her leg back and tried to keep her balance and started pin-wheeling to bring her back up. It almost worked but it wasn’t enough. With a look of pure horror and fear on her face, she fell backwards onto the stairs and slammed the back of her head painfully. She cried out, tumbled down the rest of the way down and crumbled into a loose ball on the second floor landing.

She managed to pull herself up, feeling blood oozing from the wound on the back of her head and from another on her left temple. In moments the whole left side of her face was covered in red. She pulled her head up to look at the top of the stairs and saw Damien slowly walking down towards her.

“Why?” She sobbed. Her ears rang high and loud, almost reminding her of the alarm that should have gone off, but above that she could hear pounding. For a moment she thought it was the next door neighbors, but it was coming from straight down the stairs. The front door. “Why me?”

“Because I love you.” He whispered shaking his head as he stepped down onto the landing and lowered himself down until he was sitting on the floor beside her. He reached out and gently pulled her sobbing, injured and dazed frame into his lap.



Ian screeched to a halt in front of the house after seeing Beverly’s next door neighbor pounding on her front door from the start of the street. He unbuckled and threw himself from the car and ran up the walkway without bothering to close the door.

“What’s happening?” He cried slipping the key into the hole despite his quaking hands.

“I think she’s in trouble!” The neighbor cried. “She started screaming...”

He twisted his hand hard enough to unlock the door and bend the key, threw it open and charged in. His eyes immediately went up to the mirror: Beverly was not alone  and moving to the side.

“Bev!” He cried and started running up the stairs, the neighbor only a step behind her. “Beverly!”

He saw Beverly sitting in a strangers lap and would forever remember the image: the left side of her face, all the way down her neck, was bloody and her expression was one of utter terror. She saw him and her eyes brightened with a twinkle of hope. The stranger wore a blue shirt, khaki-slacks and a pair of sandals. Ian swore the stranger was somehow shimmering.

“Ian…” She whispered.

“You let her alone!” Ian bellowed as the stranger reached up for her face.

“Time to go home.” The man whispered and touched her forehead.

Ian and the neighbor’s world went white for a brief moment. They both blinked the white light away as fast as they could. When they could see, they both saw the same thing: the second floor of the house was empty.