Thank you all for the lovely reviews. I hope you continue to enjoy the story as it unfolds. Once again apologies for grammar and spelling mistakes, they are certainly not my strong point!
Life has a habit of just happening. Days would tick by and grow like the hands of a clock, the two of us content to live out each day in our own private bubble of happiness. Life was working wonderful magic. It was morphing the ordinary into the extraordinary with the most breath taking results. We took nothing for granted and no mundane moment went unchecked. There were so many wonderful moments. Lazy Sunday's spent in bed with newspapers crumbled at the foot and naked limbs entwined in sleeping slumber. Evenings where we would haunt theatres and restaurants, hiding cleanly in plain sight. Sometimes the walk home would mean more than the show and I would take in the sight of her cheeks, flushed and red from the cold snap of winter. The frost would settle on the ground and we would walk home arm in arm and into the warm mouth of our apartment. Off would come a bundle of winter clothing, heavy furs and scarves and an adorable wooly hat that made Therese look impossibly charming. We loved to dine and see and feel things and I relished the surprise in her eyes when we would stumble upon something new. She was emotionally much more intelligent than I and it never failed to amaze me how generous and how honest she was with her love for me. She was certainly teaching me things I had never dreamed to know. The apartment, also, changed before my eyes. I watched the furniture moved, photographs mounted and hung proudly on the walls, trinkets and souvenirs littering book shelfs and coffee tables. I could feel my pride, the stoic impenetrable mask, begin to slip away shard by shard. I would always be stubborn, of course, but I was beginning to let myself go and give in to my love for her without reservation. I would not deny myself the act of missing her, giving in to the feeling on evenings when she would work late and I would sit and home, smoking and waiting, excited when I heard her key in the door. It was not a weakness to want her, I told myself, springing out of my chair as she got in, helping her take off her coat and kissing her in greeting. "I've missed you" I would say, trying it on for size, and she would dazzle me with a charming look of surprise.
Imagine that. Imagine such wonderfully, blissful happiness in the face of so much gloom. Yes I was happy with her, happier than I had ever been before, and yet I could feel the misery, lurking in the background. These days, as the visits grew less frequent, it felt safer not to think of her. When my thoughts of her would surface I would push them to the background, only to have them emerge in the dead of the night when I would wake with hot tears in my eyes. I was happy and in love and yet my heart was broken. It was missing a vital piece but I would not examine things consciously, not anymore. Instead I would submerge myself in this apartment, in those waiting arms and try my hardest to believe that ghosts would not come back to haunt me.
This evening was one of our happy times. We stood in the kitchen with a counter top of ingredients that i was determined, with instruction, Therese would turn in to a delicious meal. Her attempts to cook, so far, had been little and infrequent. I liked to call her an assembler of food and truth be told she had gotten by using this model for quite some time now.
"Therese" I said in an attempt to get her to concentrate.
"Mmm hmm?" She murmured, sneaking away a green olive that was popped in to her mouth with approval.
"Stop eating the ingredients" I scolded her. "Now come along, you can start by dicing the onions" I suggested. She came up behind me, arms expertly swooping me in to an embrace, with her head nestled into the nook of my shoulder.
"I'll watch" She suggested, planting a soft kiss against my neck. "I learn better by watching. I'm a very visual learner"
For a long moment I indulged myself with the feel of her embrace. "Onions" I repeated as she released me from her arms and nodded her head in mock obedience.
"Ok, ok" She acquiesced. She began cutting the onions in her usual haphazard manner, creating giant chunks of silvery pearl that practically rolled off of the surface.
"Darling I asked you to dice them" I reminded her, allowing a hand to rest against her slender shoulder blade, feeling the tautness under her white shirt. It was the feel of her, solid and real, that I loved to be reminded of. "Now add those to the pan with the garlic"
"And now?"
"The herbs and then the red wine…a generous glug should do it" I said, draining the contents of my whiskey tumbler and refilling it.
She stirred the pan to life, eyebrows knitted together, mouth fixed with a look of determination. I enjoyed these moments the most, when I could look at her without reproach and admire her without conversation. It was my own personal vice and one I had no intention of giving up. Within moments I found that i had began to mimic her earlier pose and my arms found themselves wrapped around her middle, mouth kissing the soft spot of her ear.
"I'll burnt it" She warned.
We sat in the living room with our drinks, the smell of dinner simmering following us in. On the floor was a carpet of black and white images. Therese's latest project, which amongst many things included countless photographs of me. She never tired of taking my picture. Her greatest love was to capture life as it was, bones and all, as it happened. It meant that there were a tide of snapshots of our everyday life and I could see our days spread out in motion. It truly was a marvellous gift.
"They're remarkable" I assured her much to her relieve. "Even the ones of me" I teased.
"I love the ones of you. I look at them often. I can't see that I'd ever grow tried of taking them"
I smiled at her and cupped her cheek in my hand. Maybe it was that second drink but I was feeling quite sentimental. I drew her closer to me and kissed her, tasting the delicate softness of her lips. I wanted her closer than my own skin and I held her to me with a sense of urgency that I could not keep from spilling over. She held me tighter in response, kissing me with a gentle, slow, pressure that made the room grow warm with our need. We did not need to speak of had a knack of knowing what we needed without question. She did not need to concern herself with the intensity of my embrace when her response echoed something of the same. It seemed that whatever I was feeling spilled in to her as if we were one and the same. We kissed and kissed over and over again, interrupted only by the insistent sound of the pan boiling over on the stove.
