Soul Fire: Cont.

I don't believe in folktales, but, I do believe life can toss you into the pit of hell. That's how it started for both of us, I suppose.

We met up in a local bar by chance, crossed paths more than once. It was once a family restaurant, bought out when the previous owners went bankrupt. I don't know how many dinners I spent here as a child. Turns out, she also frequented the place before it was torn down and replaced. That shared fondness was perhaps the catalyst. It was at least part of it. As more time passed, our meetings grew more frequent.

We remained anonymous, I didn't even know her name. She didn't know mine either.

We talked about personal things, although even those subjects remained ambiguous. That way, neither one of us would get attached. It was made clear to me very early on, she didn't want a commitment. I even asked her about it once. Why a beautiful woman, such as herself, wasn't spoken for. I saw pretty emerald eyes darken when the question left me.

The remains upon the mantle were all that remained. That's what she told me.

Admittedly, we were drunk. I was on my fourth grasshopper, a drink she claimed tasted like toothpaste. She doused her sorrows in wine, a deep red chardonnay. It was the color of her lover's eyes. She said that too, all the while, bitterly detailing the cancer that took away its victim slowly. A battle lost only after several years of failed cures, witchdoctors, and unanswered prayers.

I knew even as she drank the wine that she hated the dry taste. I asked her about that too.

"Why do you drink wine if you don't like the taste?"

"Food for thought," her fingers drifted into her leather pocket. It wasn't a moment later that a crinkled photograph hit the table. "You know," the dark haired woman began slowly before sipping her drink. "People always say that depression colors the world gray. I think that depressed people don't even look at the world."

"What do they look at, then, if not the world?" I asked, because I wasn't sure.

"I don't know," she said, the finality a painful one. "Themselves? Or maybe it's that whatever they see, well, isn't the same anymore."

"Like the past?" I concluded for her, but I could see I'd been wrong.

"What they once had, you mean."

All I could do was agree, it wasn't as if I understood her pain. I felt like questioning it any further would be like throwing salt in the wound. "How long has it been?"

"Two years ago next week," it took no small effort to say it. She made that perfectly clear in the way her eyes bounced to the empty wine glass, and the bottle she'd purchased that was half empty. "Shizuru died on the eighth, one week before my birthday."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," she muttered darkly to me. Grasping the bottle another drink filled her glass, and once again, she looked into the depth of the liquid. "Nothing else we could do, we tried everything."

I put my hand over hers. It was then, though, that some part of me knew that I wanted her. Not just some exclusionary woman that warmed my bed at night, but as a woman that would become part of my greater whole.

I wanted to put her back together, so that maybe, just maybe, she could return the favor for me. "Tell me your name, stranger," I murmured, half hoping she's turn me down.

"Natsuki," the risk taker said. "Yours?"

"Mai," I said, a tiny hope creeping into my voice in spite of myself. "Mai Tokiha."

"Well then, Mai, now you know the truth."

That I did, but, I wanted to know more. More of her, the life she had, the love she lost. I wanted to know everything, not just the call of her body...although, I wanted that all to myself too.