Just One Look
By Valma
Part 2 : One Dark and Stormy Night
My Journey Through Life - Niles Crane
Tonight I almost cascaded down a precipice that would have led to shear disaster!
Maris and I have been experiencing a little monotony in our marriage lately. I felt like we were slipping into a dark, numbing void, which was sucking the life out of our relationship. Nothing, I am sure, that other couples don't experience from time to time. When Frasier detected my "ennui", he suggested a little sexual role-playing to spice things up, but unfortunately things backfired and the end result was that Maris fled to Arizona, leaving me alone here in Seattle while she sought comfort in a mud bath in the desert.
In an act of pure generosity Daphne offered to help patch things up by cooking us a dinner - a kind of a culinary "mea culpa", if I could convince her to return. I immediately called and begged Maris to come home. She agreed finally and I was looking forward to forging a newer and stronger bond with my wife, when catastrophe struck!
As if all the forces of nature were against us, a violent storm, covering half the western continent, happened the very night that Maris was scheduled to return. One event tumbled into another, but suffice it to say it ended up that Daphne and I found ourselves alone in that gargantuan great room in Maris' family mansion. Maybe it was the several glasses of wine that I had downed before Daphne arrived - done purely to calm my nerves before prostrating myself before the scrutinizing eye of my loving but exacting wife. Possibly it was the driving rain, pounding on the windowpanes like the beating of fevered jungle drums, or the darkness of the night, after the electricity went out, when we were left with nothing except the flickering flames of the fireplace to illuminate the circumstances that we found ourselves in. Perhaps it was the sensual garment that Daphne changed into, since her clothes were soaked through - the way it clung to her voluptuous body, revealing just enough flesh to entice further imaginings as to what lay beneath that silky wrapper. It could have been all of those factors - or none of them! I don't know! But what I do know is, that every obsessive feeling that I had been successfully suppressing over the last few months towards Daphne came surging over me like a tsunami that night.
I was out of control! I was a tumult of emotions, cravings and longings, as she stretched out before me on the Turkish carpet in front of the burning embers of the fire we had built for light and warmth. All I could see was her lush lips and doe eyes surrounded by the creamiest complexion God ever created. My nose was overwhelmed with her bouquet - musky and erotic, yet flowery and innocent. My fingers yearned to reach out and caress her smooth knolls of flesh as they rose and fell in the rhythmic pattern of her breathing. God! She was beauty personified! And she was lying there, talking in that extraordinary accent about feeling so comfortable with me, calling me kind and telling me that she felt close to me. I would have gladly swept her into my arms and carried her to my bedchamber, laid her out on those satiny sheets and shown her every carnal delight I was capable of. All I could think of was gratifying this goddess' every passionate desire. It was simply staggering.
And then in an instant - it was gone. Robbed from me by a mere tintinnabulation from my past. As the glockenspiel chimed out its matrimonial memories, guilt flooded over me and washed away my appetite for this delicious aphrodisiac who knelt beside me in that darkened room. The embodiment of guilelessness, she unwittingly aided me to return to reality.
"You really love her, don't you?"
Her naïve remark was the slap in the face that I needed to avoid taking that next dangerous step that I had, moments before, contemplated so hungrily. I stammered out an affirmation, and when she questioned whether she could ever find true love, I assured her that she would. My compensatory reward was a chaste kiss on cheek and the title of "good friend".
Good friend - an honorable enough badge and certainly one that puts everything into perspective.
The chaos inside me is over. Things are back to the way they should be.
When Maris finally gets home I shall hug her and tell her how much she means to me. I hope she understands and accepts my affections without too much suspicion. I need to hear her say that she loves me and tell me that everything is all right with us.
Adieu.
* * * * * * * * *
Daphne's Diary
Dear Diary:
Eric is a pig!! All men are pigs!!!!!
Well, not all men exactly - Dr. Crane isn't. The younger Dr. Crane, that is.
Eric broke up with me. I thought we were doing just grand, but he said he had to chose to either concentrate on his music or me - and I apparently can't hold a candle to an out of tune guitar! Especially if that guitar is being held by some barstool floozy!
Naturally I was feeling just horrible and wanted to hide in my bed and eat cookies all night, but I had already agreed to do a favour for Dr. Crane's brother. You see he and his wife (who is a bit of a weird duck, if you ask me) had been going through a rough patch, so I offered my services to cook up a nice dinner for them. Well, long story short and all that, the dinner was called off because she couldn't make it back home through this rather large rainstorm and Dr. Crane and I ended up spending the night talking. I told him about what Eric did to me and he was so sweet! He said the kindest things, just to make me feel better, I'm sure. I loved hearing him say that Eric was a fool for breaking up with me and that he didn't deserve me. Bloody right! Bollocks to him!
Anyway, it's funny - my first impression of Dr. Crane was that he was a right old stuffed shirt, like his brother is - but he isn't. Yes, he is extremely wealthy and he does have a gazillion letters after his name, like the other Dr. Crane. But he is also someone who is very sensitive and listens really well (it isn't just a motto for a radio show for him). What I mistook in beginning as snootiness, really is just a basic shyness I think. He seems painfully tongue-tied half the time and sometimes downright clumsy, poor thing. I can't tell you the number of times he has broken things or gone crashing into fixtures of various sorts.
And I don't think he is very happy.
He can afford the very best of everything, so I don't know why isn't more happy. Sometimes I come into the living room and see him sitting on the couch, all alone, waiting for his older brother before they depart to some snobby sounding event, and I just want to go over an give him a hug and tell him everything is going to be O.K. Of course I don't - that wouldn't be professional or proper. Not only is he a married man, but I found out that he pays half my wages as well. As soon as he knows I am in the room though, he'll suddenly look up at me with those dark blue eyes of his and give me a cheery smile. Then he'll compliment me on my appearance, even if I am in some ratty old sweater and wearing those horrible yellow scrub gloves.
Why, one of the very first times I met him, he gave me a gift of clotted cream. Oh, he said it was for his father, but I could tell he was just covering, so it didn't look too forward of him. I bet he knew that I missed some of those things that you can only get readily back home and that I couldn't afford such luxuries on my wages. Later Mr. Crane told me that his son Niles was the one who had warned him not to eat that type of stuff because of the fat content - so I know it was really a gift for me. How can someone so thoughtful be so sad most of the time?
Maybe it is because of his wife. Oh, she's a strange one, she is! The few times that she has made an appearance to his brother's apartment I couldn't help but notice how snotty and cold she was to everyone, including her own husband! But he seems to be devoted to her. And that brings me full circle. He was willing to go to such trouble to apologize to her - candles, having me cook a fancy dinner for them, soft music, the finest china - just the sort of romantic setting that would set any woman's heart a-flutter. As far as I could tell he really didn't have anything to say sorry for. It was just a lot of fuss on her part over a simple misunderstanding. But still, he wanted to - what other man would have gone to so much trouble? I could tell he was so disappointed when she phoned and said that she couldn't make it. After her call he was really on edge. But in spite of all that, did he sit around moping about his own problems? No! Not at all! He seemed to go out of his way to try and make me feel better about being dumped by Eric. I think that's when I realised what a truly good person he was.
And now, Diary, I am going to confess a secret that only you will know. For one brief moment, as I was telling him how glad I was that the night ended up the way it did, I found myself wishing that I was the one married to Dr. Crane and not that skinny harpy Mrs. Crane. I felt so warm and relaxed talking to him, completely secure in his presence. But I instantly realised that this was just a fleeting fantasy and not fitting at all, so I immediately put it out of my head! A grand man like Dr. Crane would no more be interested in a working-class person like me than the Queen would be in a stable boy. I know I'll find someone some day, someone that is more my type of person, but also someone who will care for me and treat me right. It may take a while --- how did Dr. Crane put it? "Some day a man worthy of you will come along --- just as soon as the gods create him." I just hope it will be sooner than later.
Tah-tah for now Diary.
Stay tuned for Parts 3 (to be continued)
By Valma
Part 2 : One Dark and Stormy Night
My Journey Through Life - Niles Crane
Tonight I almost cascaded down a precipice that would have led to shear disaster!
Maris and I have been experiencing a little monotony in our marriage lately. I felt like we were slipping into a dark, numbing void, which was sucking the life out of our relationship. Nothing, I am sure, that other couples don't experience from time to time. When Frasier detected my "ennui", he suggested a little sexual role-playing to spice things up, but unfortunately things backfired and the end result was that Maris fled to Arizona, leaving me alone here in Seattle while she sought comfort in a mud bath in the desert.
In an act of pure generosity Daphne offered to help patch things up by cooking us a dinner - a kind of a culinary "mea culpa", if I could convince her to return. I immediately called and begged Maris to come home. She agreed finally and I was looking forward to forging a newer and stronger bond with my wife, when catastrophe struck!
As if all the forces of nature were against us, a violent storm, covering half the western continent, happened the very night that Maris was scheduled to return. One event tumbled into another, but suffice it to say it ended up that Daphne and I found ourselves alone in that gargantuan great room in Maris' family mansion. Maybe it was the several glasses of wine that I had downed before Daphne arrived - done purely to calm my nerves before prostrating myself before the scrutinizing eye of my loving but exacting wife. Possibly it was the driving rain, pounding on the windowpanes like the beating of fevered jungle drums, or the darkness of the night, after the electricity went out, when we were left with nothing except the flickering flames of the fireplace to illuminate the circumstances that we found ourselves in. Perhaps it was the sensual garment that Daphne changed into, since her clothes were soaked through - the way it clung to her voluptuous body, revealing just enough flesh to entice further imaginings as to what lay beneath that silky wrapper. It could have been all of those factors - or none of them! I don't know! But what I do know is, that every obsessive feeling that I had been successfully suppressing over the last few months towards Daphne came surging over me like a tsunami that night.
I was out of control! I was a tumult of emotions, cravings and longings, as she stretched out before me on the Turkish carpet in front of the burning embers of the fire we had built for light and warmth. All I could see was her lush lips and doe eyes surrounded by the creamiest complexion God ever created. My nose was overwhelmed with her bouquet - musky and erotic, yet flowery and innocent. My fingers yearned to reach out and caress her smooth knolls of flesh as they rose and fell in the rhythmic pattern of her breathing. God! She was beauty personified! And she was lying there, talking in that extraordinary accent about feeling so comfortable with me, calling me kind and telling me that she felt close to me. I would have gladly swept her into my arms and carried her to my bedchamber, laid her out on those satiny sheets and shown her every carnal delight I was capable of. All I could think of was gratifying this goddess' every passionate desire. It was simply staggering.
And then in an instant - it was gone. Robbed from me by a mere tintinnabulation from my past. As the glockenspiel chimed out its matrimonial memories, guilt flooded over me and washed away my appetite for this delicious aphrodisiac who knelt beside me in that darkened room. The embodiment of guilelessness, she unwittingly aided me to return to reality.
"You really love her, don't you?"
Her naïve remark was the slap in the face that I needed to avoid taking that next dangerous step that I had, moments before, contemplated so hungrily. I stammered out an affirmation, and when she questioned whether she could ever find true love, I assured her that she would. My compensatory reward was a chaste kiss on cheek and the title of "good friend".
Good friend - an honorable enough badge and certainly one that puts everything into perspective.
The chaos inside me is over. Things are back to the way they should be.
When Maris finally gets home I shall hug her and tell her how much she means to me. I hope she understands and accepts my affections without too much suspicion. I need to hear her say that she loves me and tell me that everything is all right with us.
Adieu.
* * * * * * * * *
Daphne's Diary
Dear Diary:
Eric is a pig!! All men are pigs!!!!!
Well, not all men exactly - Dr. Crane isn't. The younger Dr. Crane, that is.
Eric broke up with me. I thought we were doing just grand, but he said he had to chose to either concentrate on his music or me - and I apparently can't hold a candle to an out of tune guitar! Especially if that guitar is being held by some barstool floozy!
Naturally I was feeling just horrible and wanted to hide in my bed and eat cookies all night, but I had already agreed to do a favour for Dr. Crane's brother. You see he and his wife (who is a bit of a weird duck, if you ask me) had been going through a rough patch, so I offered my services to cook up a nice dinner for them. Well, long story short and all that, the dinner was called off because she couldn't make it back home through this rather large rainstorm and Dr. Crane and I ended up spending the night talking. I told him about what Eric did to me and he was so sweet! He said the kindest things, just to make me feel better, I'm sure. I loved hearing him say that Eric was a fool for breaking up with me and that he didn't deserve me. Bloody right! Bollocks to him!
Anyway, it's funny - my first impression of Dr. Crane was that he was a right old stuffed shirt, like his brother is - but he isn't. Yes, he is extremely wealthy and he does have a gazillion letters after his name, like the other Dr. Crane. But he is also someone who is very sensitive and listens really well (it isn't just a motto for a radio show for him). What I mistook in beginning as snootiness, really is just a basic shyness I think. He seems painfully tongue-tied half the time and sometimes downright clumsy, poor thing. I can't tell you the number of times he has broken things or gone crashing into fixtures of various sorts.
And I don't think he is very happy.
He can afford the very best of everything, so I don't know why isn't more happy. Sometimes I come into the living room and see him sitting on the couch, all alone, waiting for his older brother before they depart to some snobby sounding event, and I just want to go over an give him a hug and tell him everything is going to be O.K. Of course I don't - that wouldn't be professional or proper. Not only is he a married man, but I found out that he pays half my wages as well. As soon as he knows I am in the room though, he'll suddenly look up at me with those dark blue eyes of his and give me a cheery smile. Then he'll compliment me on my appearance, even if I am in some ratty old sweater and wearing those horrible yellow scrub gloves.
Why, one of the very first times I met him, he gave me a gift of clotted cream. Oh, he said it was for his father, but I could tell he was just covering, so it didn't look too forward of him. I bet he knew that I missed some of those things that you can only get readily back home and that I couldn't afford such luxuries on my wages. Later Mr. Crane told me that his son Niles was the one who had warned him not to eat that type of stuff because of the fat content - so I know it was really a gift for me. How can someone so thoughtful be so sad most of the time?
Maybe it is because of his wife. Oh, she's a strange one, she is! The few times that she has made an appearance to his brother's apartment I couldn't help but notice how snotty and cold she was to everyone, including her own husband! But he seems to be devoted to her. And that brings me full circle. He was willing to go to such trouble to apologize to her - candles, having me cook a fancy dinner for them, soft music, the finest china - just the sort of romantic setting that would set any woman's heart a-flutter. As far as I could tell he really didn't have anything to say sorry for. It was just a lot of fuss on her part over a simple misunderstanding. But still, he wanted to - what other man would have gone to so much trouble? I could tell he was so disappointed when she phoned and said that she couldn't make it. After her call he was really on edge. But in spite of all that, did he sit around moping about his own problems? No! Not at all! He seemed to go out of his way to try and make me feel better about being dumped by Eric. I think that's when I realised what a truly good person he was.
And now, Diary, I am going to confess a secret that only you will know. For one brief moment, as I was telling him how glad I was that the night ended up the way it did, I found myself wishing that I was the one married to Dr. Crane and not that skinny harpy Mrs. Crane. I felt so warm and relaxed talking to him, completely secure in his presence. But I instantly realised that this was just a fleeting fantasy and not fitting at all, so I immediately put it out of my head! A grand man like Dr. Crane would no more be interested in a working-class person like me than the Queen would be in a stable boy. I know I'll find someone some day, someone that is more my type of person, but also someone who will care for me and treat me right. It may take a while --- how did Dr. Crane put it? "Some day a man worthy of you will come along --- just as soon as the gods create him." I just hope it will be sooner than later.
Tah-tah for now Diary.
Stay tuned for Parts 3 (to be continued)
