A Prophecy of a Beautiful Devil Part 2

      They held each other. Tiffany was tired so she soon drifted off. Steven was tired too but he resisted closing his eyes. For more than an hour, he held his wife in his arms, as tightly as he could without waking her. He couldn’t resist forever. Sleep pulled him down…

 

        She wasn’t going to tell anyone about the kiss. She wasn’t going to talk to him again; not one word. She was never even going to look at him again. Not today and not ever.

     She walked through the guests at the barbeque with her bags of ice, like a drug smuggler going through customs; eyes rigidly forward. Halfway across her back lawn, her will broke and looked around to see where he was.

    “Here, let me take them, Tiffany.” Someone took the bags of ice from her hands. She didn’t notice who. It wasn’t Jarren.

     Jarren was standing in the garden’s sunniest spot, talking to a girl. Six foot two inches of irressitable combinations. Blonde hair and blue eyes. Smooth, tanned skin and sculpted muscle. Beauty and badness. His good looks were heartbreaking. His self-assurance breathtaking. He was nineteen years old.

      Tiffany joined three of her girlfriends. The first thing Jesse said too her was: “Oh, have you caught some son Tiff or is it just the wine? You’re looking very flushed.”

    Tiffany hadn’t caught the sun or had any wine but she could, indeed, feel that her cheeks were flaming red. To prove just how normal everything was she launched into a spiel about how glad she was that lots of people had turned up and she had worried that not many would come, but then again she should would have prepared for more people because the chicken legs were all gone already and the soft drinks had nearly run out and maybe she should send Steven to the shops for more and hadn’t they been lucky with the weather.

      “Ooooo, I see Jarren’s here”. Kate interrupted excitedly.

      Great! thought Tiffany.

      “Who’s that he’s talking to? Is that his girlfriend?” asked Jesse.

      “No’, said Tiffany, sharply. Then, with a forcedly, casual voice: “That’s Bree from Steven work. She won’t even have met him before.”

   “Look at falling her for him already, though. Playing with her hair and giggling at everything he says. Don’t you feel sorry for her?”

    Actually, no, Tiffany didn’t feel sorry for her. She had only met Bree twice. She had seemed very nice. But as Tiffany watched Bree, basking in the gaze of those baby blue eyes, no doubt feeling herself the most beautiful girl in the world, Tiffany didn’t feel sorry for her at all. She found that she loathed her. She wanted to push her pretty, freckled face into the coleslaw bowl. 

    “You must have heard the stories about him,Tiffany?”

    “No.” Tiffany shrugged. Both her lie and her shrug were unconvincing. She hadn’t just heard the stories about him. She had devoured the stories about him.

     “You know, even if I was still married,” Jesse was leering at Jarren’s biceps and licking her lips “I’d still do him in a second”.

    The others squeled with laughter. Jesse was the naughty girl of the group. Twice divorced and licienced to say the unsayable.

   “Well, it didn’t stop Anna Storebridge did it,” she protested.

    “No! No more about Jarron and Anna Storebridge. That was all anyone talked about for months,”said Katie.

   “And you work with her now don’t you Danni. How is she?”

   “A mess. Having that affair, basically, ruined her whole life.”

  Tiffany snapped: “She deserved to have her life ruined. What she did to her husband was just terrible. He was destroyed. She was unbelievably stupid and selfish.”

    “Hey, you said you hadn’t heard the stories.”

    Tiffany glared across the garden at Jarren and thought, ‘he better not even look at me today’.

    “A bit harsh, Tiffany.”

    “I just can’t understand how anyone could behave like that”.

    “I know it was nuts but lust will drive some people nuts,”

    “She says it was love. For her it was, anyway. He’s still all she talks about. It’s really freaky hearing a twenty nine year old talk about a nineteen year old like that. I mean, you can understand all those girl his own age throwing themselves at him.”

     “I wouldn’t have fallen for him at that age either,” said Tiffany.

     “You liar”.

     “I’ve never liked guys like that”.

     “What don’t you like? Gorgeous? Hunky?”

     “Mean. Cruel. He hurts people”.

     “Tiffany we all know you’re a happily married woman but are you seriously saying when you look over there at Jarren you don’t think- WOW!”

   Tiffany sighed and shook her head. “ When I look at a guy like that…” as she looked at him her voice faltered “…”when I look at Jarron, I just think…um...I think…” And as she looked  at him she thought: why the fuck won’t he look at me. And that  preening little, bitch Bree better get away from him right now.

       Jealousy; like a scythe, slicing away all ambiguity. In the kitchen, after he had kissed her, she had struggled with appalling confusion. What did these things- the butterflies in the stomach, the shaking hands- actually mean? There was no confusion now. That stab off jealousy cleared the way for the truth. It was an appalling truth. A truth she didn’t want to know. A truth that could only destroy her. She felt she might crumple into tears.

      A quiet voice spoke. It was from close by but had all the impression of a distant buzzing, she was so overwhelmed by emotion and by the beautiful face, across the crowded garden.

    A slight movement of a head lifted her from hell to heaven. Jarren looked away from his companion. Those blue eyes sought Tiffany out and found her. She basked in his gaze and again, knew that she was beautiful. Truth, suddenly, was bliss.

   The quiet voice beside her spoke louder. Then, louder still. A hand shook her shoulder.

“Tiffany, I said. I’m going to quickly pop out for some more Coke. I’ve been talking to you for a while. Didn’t you hear me?”

   “I’m sorry, Stevie. I didn’t notice you”.

   

 

“Tell me about it”.

“Nah. People who go on about their dreams are boring,” he said and then pretended to be distracted by the menu.

“It obviously wasn’t a boring dream. You were really upset. Were you crying?”

 He laughed “Oh, come on.”

“Why were you covering your face then? Come on babe, we always said we would be honest about everything.”

     They had always said that. They had said it that first night they spent up all night together just talking; they had said it after he asked her to marry him and they had that long walk along the river bank planning their new life. When he woke up, he covered his face because he couldn’t bear to look at her. He had, at that moment, felt hatred towards her. Could he really be truthful about that?

    “I can’t even remember it now anyway. The fish looks nice. Are you ready to order yet?“

   “Yeah, I’ll have the fish too. Dreams are so weird aren’t they? They always seem to make sense at the time but then you wake up and think ‘that was nuts! How did I imagine that.’”

    Steven nodded in agreement while thinking that, no, that wasn’t the way of these dreams at all. These dreams had none of the crazy, scrambled logic of dreams. They made sense at the time and still made sense during the waking hours. These dreams weren’t even seen through his own eyes. In these dream he saw and felt what Tiffany did. In fact these dreams weren’t like dreams at all. They were more like..more like…You want I tella your future.

         The restaurant was quiet. At one of the only other occupied tables, sat an obese man in his fifties with an attractive Asian woman in her twenties. Steven and Tiffany had saw them when they first came in and exchanged smirks. Now the couple were leaving. As they walked, passed Steven and Tiffany’s table, toward the exit, the man grabbed the young woman’s mini-skirted ass. She giggled and grabbed the mans own backside, or at least what little she could of its vast, flabby proportions with her own little hand.

      When they left Tiffany groaned, “Uuugh, I really wish I hadn’t saw that, right before dinner.”

    “Its obviously a meeting of minds. True love.”

     “Definitely. She‘s took one glance at his wallet and she was head over heels.”

      “You’re so cynical, Tiffany. Just because he ate one of the sharing plates by himself doesn’t mean he’s not loveable. That’s being sizeist.”

       “No, I’m being ageist. Fat and ugly might be okay. But fat and ugly and and eighty is too much. “

      “Eighty? He was only about fifty”

       “No. You see the thing with fat people is, it stretches out their faces so they look younger. He’s got thirty years of wrinkles that you can’t see.”

    Steven laughed. She could always make him laugh; more than any of his male friends, even on his darkest days.

     As casually as he could, Steven asked “So you don’t approve of age gap relationships? What about the other way around? Gender reversal”

      “You mean older woman, younger guy –oh, here comes my our fish. Looks nice.”

      “Yeah. What do you think about that?”

       “If you’re asking me if I ever have, then the answers no.  All my boyfriends before you were the same age or a couple of years older. “

       “But in general, what do you think. “

       She shrugged.

       “You don’t understand why some women would be attracted to that? You know; youth, stamina, dynamism.”

      “Immaturity, acne, diapers.” 

       “Seriously?”

        “Babe, I’m not normally judgmental about other people relationships but any time I see a woman with a younger guy, I want to laugh. I just feel like she’s making a fool of herself.”

          Steven felt a warm glow of relief flow through him. He decided that his dream had been truly crazy, for all its seeming logic. It was crazy to imagine the thoughts of the woman in his dream, could be the same as this woman sitting with him now. The woman he was so ridiculously fortunate to be married to; the sweetest, funniest, kindest woman in the world.

     The meal was excellent. The fish was delicious; same day, line caught and happily swimming in its pool of garlic sauce. The white wine was a meld of fruit and joyful sunshine. The sweet rapture of the deserts clung to the tongue. They talked and they laughed.

        Steven began to tell Tiffany a story and, while he talked, he heard the restaurant door opening behind him. Tiffany’s eye darted to the door. Steven could tell she was no longer listening to him. She was instantly focused on whoever had come through the door. Her eyes widened in excitement. Her lips parted slightly as, slowly, she looked the person up and down.  Her face shone with desire.

          Steven’s heart began to pound. The fish, wine and desert started an ugly brawl in his stomach. He felt faint. He stopped talking and Tiffany didn’t notice. She was still transfixed by whoever was behind him. Steven heard himself whimper. “Tiffany can you hear me?”

   She didn’t. Her excited attention was still fixed on the other person. In absolute dread, Steven very slowly turned around. His heart was hammering so hard in chest it was painful. His palm was so sweaty his wine glass threatened to slide out of his grip.

     He found that standing behind his back was a young woman.

      “I’m sorry Steven what were you saying there? I got totally distracted by that girls dress. That design is so exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’m not sure about that colour though.”

      After the meal they walked along the seafront in the moonlight. Delicate, silver stitches wriggled far out on the black ocean but then hit the harbour walls as violent, salty crashes. The warm air was like velvet on the skin. Other young lovers, other honeymooners, walked passed them and the strangers would smile at them knowingly, as if in secret confederacy.

      “I’m so happy,” said Tiffany but then she burst into tears.

       He took her in his arms “Tiff, what’s the matter?”

      “It’s the last night of our honeymoon.”

       “Aw, baby don’t cry. It’s been lovely, hasn’t it?”

       “Yeah and now it’s over.”

        He tilted her sobbing face up to look at his. “Tiff, listen to me. Nothing is over. It’s only just beginning. This is just the start of the rest of our lives together. It’s only going to get better.”

      Tiffany beautiful smile broke through her tears “It will?”

       “Every day is going to be a honeymoon; every day better than the last. We’re just going to love each other more as the years go by.”

        “We’re going to just never stop being happy aren’t we?”

         “Happier and happier.”

         “For ever and ever?”

         “For ever and ever.”

        The honeymooners clung to each other in the moonlight.