There is this certain look existing and shining up in his eyes. I just cannot easily describe it, but that does not mean that it is not there at all or in any way feasible. It is just there. Tender; attached and seemingly devoted ; and jubilant and loving and affectionate too. Here we stand smiling and beaming up at each other, words failing us to utterly express and make out any emotions that we are undergoing deep down, but the feelings that we are darting and leveling at each other—they are the undeniable and sure feelings of being truly happy with each other and concluding that a greater and more serious bond and friendship ought to be built and framed up between the both of us. I don’t know why I should feel this way regarding him, but he truly is special and wonderful indeed. Please don’t stir up and awaken any doubts in your minds as concerns all this. I am just telling the whole truth and not making anything here up.
“Would you mind if we go out for a much cleaner breath of air and I tell you a particular story?” This, Rhys says and declares to me with a humanely mind and likable expression. I can’t turn his offer down. I just have to go out there with him. Sure-fire do-ooohhhh!
“Of course, Rhys! You can surely take me anywhere it is that you feel like wanting to take me,” the words are already out of my mouth in that bubbly thrilled and galvanized sort of way than I cannot control or oversee. Anywhere that you feel like wanting to take me to? Sure! That is Mirth teasing and jeering me up. Damn her for it! She has the guts, doesn’t freaking she?
He stretches out his hand towards me so that he can grab hold of it and then lead and steer me out to the cleanly and wonderful breeze of air out there. What about Courtney—my best ever friend and chum? Am I not supposed to let her know where it is that I am heading off to with Rhys here? Using a voice-to-text application converter on my Blackberry Smartphone once Rhys is standing there talking and having a word up or maybe three with this particular dishy-looking gentleman that he came with in the companionship of Marie de Pierre, I grab myself aside to some quiet and not-so crowded corner where I speak out to my touch-pad phone: “I am going out for a walk with some guy, Schroeder. He is just a latest friend of mine—nothing more other than this. I will catch up with you later on. Enjoy yourself please, my sweetest babe!”
Speedily and with a pace quicker than the strike of lightning, the application has perfectly understood all my words—and automatically and 100% accurate faultlessly transcribed them all into a one-paged text, which I quickly and without wasting any bit of time post over and forward straight into Courtney’s mailbox. Of course! Her email programmer will quickly notify her about my newest message for her.
Rhys is now by my side, walking with me gracefully and beautifully out here. I look at him. Hmmnnnnn! He is so incredibly and wonderfully beautiful and gorgeous. Just like Charles was, and I even feel that he still is (Charles I mean, dummy). He (Rhys) feels like a hard and sharply stinging slap to my senses and rationale all abruptly and unexpectedly. I have felt this electrifying and galvanizing way with Charles before. I still am feeling it right now with this man here. What could this mean? That I am starting to get infatuated and insanely obsessed with him? It is normal to happen and occur anyways.
He also looks up at me here and then. I straight off and without prompt hesitation glance off away from him. Is it because I am all shy and awkward? Hell simply no! Then why do I have to do this? He doesn’t have to know that I have been looking heavily at him like this. Come on. Stop fooling and cheating yourself, Tori! He by now knows it……..he must have obviously felt it. That is so true and rightful besides—I am fully aware and conscious of this. What is he going to say now next, huh?
“You have a nice wrist watch,” I observe and pass comment to him. It is fastened and secured right there on his hand, hugging and clasping on to his skin dearly and lovingly. I wish I could do the same to him too. Ha—ha! I am just cracking jokes here, don’t mind me. The watch is as brand new and expensive as ever before. I think that it is the most expensive thing that he is wearing right at this particular moment. I love it. Not because it costs $$$. No way! Its make and design and model…….it is just damn too gorgeous and magnificent and eye catching and flattering to some soaring high degree. It seems like he has a good eye at seeing and picking up things, or doesn’t he?
Again his watch reminds me of Charles’. Yes! Charles loved and adored watches like mad. He even told me in person that he has so many of them stored and piled up there at his house and that he would without fail give me one too. “A promise is a promise,” I quote and say out his very own sweet-echoing words. But then again he was all poorly nervous and shaky and trembling as he was making this exact promise to me. Like he was afraid of failing to meet up its expectations in the very end and then let me down as a result. I just didn’t clearly get it. The poor thing! When was he ever going to stop being all this nervous and shaky and terrified when it came to me being in his presence? At least for the nonce, there emerged and cropped into sight and reality some improvement later onwards.
“Oh—my watch,” Rhys almost seems to forget that he is wearing it. He glances straight down at it. It is a Shinola make and model and a deep shining black in color and appearance too. I just simply love it for what it nicely and coincidentally is. “I am glad that you like it. But you know one thing? Even though it might look all this expensive and luxurious, it was not priced that really much high. Not at all! I think it is the best and fast functioning watch I have ever bought.”
Yeah. It might turn out so. And I wouldn’t be all any helplessly surprised and shocked either.
“You said that you are going to tell me this particular story,” I mention. He looks at me angrily and furiously for a bit while like he is going to frown and make a nasty bitter face at me for daring to ask him this. Oh no! He better dare not scowl again. I have already had enough of this sort. Seriously!
“I have not forgotten what I promised you, Tori.”
Oh………oh……..sorry mister. That is my entire fault, I am guessing now? Tori, learn how to be patient and good-minded, will you please, my sweetest love? Yes, Mirth-y! I have clearly heard you, beloved one. I am wondering…….what story is he going to tell me this time around? Is it a love story? I love romantic based and pieced up tales. They make my heart warm and gladly kick and beat up. I guess that we are all fans and lovers of romance, or are we really not?
“Once upon a time, there was a prince who lived in a land very, very far away. This prince, just like all boys, had a name. His name was Loci, and he was an extremely handsome boy and young man too. His father was a wealthy and good-natured king who gave him everything that he wished to have in this entire world. His full happiness and pleasure lied in providing for his son and seeing that he was intensely pleased and happy with everything coming to him. The boy, just like a normal boy is supposed to be, grew up to be a terribly good-looking young man whom all girls desired and deep down their desirous hearts ached for. Each girl around him kept on saying and flattering himself with these sugary words: “He shall notice and marry me one soon coming day.” But yes, he did notice and went out with so many of them. Even as far as sleeping and lying down with them. And no, he did not marry any of them like they wanted him to do.
“The prince knew that he must now marry. The king expected him to get wed by now and already start considering giving him grandchildren for his own dignified pride and swagger—”
I cut Rhys short straight right here. “Wait a second, Rhys. Is ‘swagger’ the rightful and appropriate word to place and lay there where you have thrown it?”
He clears his throat before my very attentive face and eyes. The moon is shining and glimmering all about us on the wide and vast balcony out here, making us look in the eyes of the other like we are flawed yet wonderfully beings enshroud and covered up with a smooth, wavering and effulgently flickering light. Our eyes twinkle and glitter at each other’s.
“Well, I am sorry for that word, Tori. All I meant to say was to describe the king’s pride and sense of authoritativeness. He would give up just about anything in the world to become a father to a son, and almost any little bit of thing left after all this just to be a grandfather to beautiful and amazing kids.”
“Go on.”
“The prince wanted to marry—that which his heart and soul had not given forth unto him.” As Rhys says and speaks this out, his facial expression darkens and embitters up to that awful and frightening state that I can neither help but shudder and quiver at. It seems like there is a more deeper meaning and symbol to this statement and description here. It is like he is seeing the things that he is actually talking about here. Is he really? That is what it definitely seems.
“What do you mean by saying: ‘The prince wanted to marry—that which his heart and soul had not given forth unto him’?” I ask him nervously and shakily. Let’s hope that no horror monster crops up and issues fearfully here where the particular story seems headed.
“Well, the prince happened to be in love with this lady here—Ellery was her name. She was blond, bubbly, well-formed up, and extremely beautiful too. But she was already married to the Dragon of Ischia.” Here again, Rhys’ eyes flare and widen and also darken in expression and appearance. I think he can see the Dragon of Ischia? But what is it really? A human being? A spirit thing? What exactly?”
“Who was this Dragon of Ischia, Rhys?”
“He was a prince—made of flesh and blood just like all of us. He had for all these years waited to watch and see Ellery grow and had what’s more vowed to let no other man take or wrench his special rose away from him. He would do just about any deed to make certain that he did not ever lose it from his strongly clutch and grasp—even it meant tinting and dipping his hands in a bitingly sharp cold bitter pool of damnable blood.”
“Well, this is quite more of a dark story, Rhys. You are starting to frighten me.” Oh yes, I know that this might sound like the most insane thing ever. I am someone who is used to watching the worst kind of horror action and gore. Blood, wounds, scars, the undead—anything that you can feel like mentioning and pointing it out here! I feast and devour it with my own eyes deliriously. How come such things dodn’t scare the shit hell out of it? Well it is not because I am now transformed into a demon, but that that stuff is just all too fictitious and unreal. In this world of storytelling, not all things are invented and forged up. Some are real—they have doubtlessly happened before, and they might still take place now and see the light of the day in our very present day and age
“A dark story it might be, Tori. But it did happen as a matter of fact. Long, long, long way back in I have forgotten what exactly kind of very olden place.” There we go! Another one of those scary but real stories! I hate this kind.
“So what happened to the prince and this blond-haired woman?”
“He fought with the dragon of Ischia. And only one of them was supposed to live through the battle so as to triumph and win over the woman to himself. It was such a fiercely and agonizing battle. One that was filled with deadliest wounds which the survivor would have to carry and bear with him for the rest of his remaining life.”
“Why didn’t he just quit on her and go on marrying any of those numberless women in his kingdom? Why her especially?”
“Because he loved her so very much………and she loved him too intensely bad. They both loved each other like the world itself was coming to a closing with their legend and pain-filled tale. He could not get to make himself forget and overlook her from his notice and awareness just like that. In fact, he tried all those gimmicks and stuff. But his mind kept on wandering and straying back toward her. Every woman whom he was with did small, insignificant things that cast his memory and reflection back unswerving to her. He saw her in every side and facet of his life.”
“Had she bewitched him or what precisely?”
“She also thought that he had done the exact same with her.”
“How did their story end then?”
“That is not yet known. It is either Loci or the Dragon of Ischia won the battle for……Ellery. Loci had ventured on forbidden and dreaded ground, and there was no turning back until he had finished the doomed course that he had taken.”
Love can at times be the most saddest story of our lives. Why do we always like tampering with the forbidden and seemingly preternatural? Love is always there……..but so is that dreaded and feared Dragon of Ischia too. He is also in love, or is not he? The Dragon I mean to say?
I feel cold. I start to shake and tremble. As soon as Rhys notices this, he immediately removes his jacket and kindly and with compassion hands it over to me. I don’t know how to thank him gratefully enough. A slightly mumbled, “Thank you,” is not enough I am guessing and conjecturing up. He is such a kind and caring man, or is not he? I like him for that. Hmmnnnnn! His jacket is the most comfortable and enjoyable that I have ever worn. After I have dolled it up, I notice his scent trickle up from it straight into my flaring and widening nostrils. I love his scent. Of course! It is not the most beautiful one in the world……….but definitely and probably it is the best ever likable. He smells fantastic.
I stare at him. He is smiling and grinning at me happily and gleefully. I grin and smile back endlessly and happily too. We are both simply…………friendly and caring with each other. After he has taken off his shirt, I observe and see how nicely and wonderfully patterned up his muscles and chest are. Wow! He is so nice-looking there. I am not supposed to be staring and thinking all of this up. But to be brutally and recklessly honest and truthful with you, I just can’t simply help it. I am starting to become infatuated with him……kind of. Stop all this senseless damn nonsense of yours, Tori! Okay, Mirth.
“Would you mind if we went back in for a drink or two?”
What is he? An alcoholic? I don’t mind still. “No problem, Rhys.”
I make haste first and proceed my way before him. Too bad! Because that is a terrible and regretful mistake on my part! I don’t know how I misstep, but I just do it, and just before any little bit of time elapses, I see and catch myself falling down the air straight towards the unseeing and almost inexistent floor. Down the thin, thickly air I fare my way down—my now dark red hair hastily and skimpily winging its way up as opposed to the floor. I think I am going to crush right on the floor. I can feel and oversee it. But then………..Rhys takes and snatches hold of me all too fast and supernaturally-like quick.
“Rhys, my goodness,” I say weakly and helplessly, held and embraced there in his own hands and clutch. Shit! What I have done? All this……..it is all my fault, or is not it?
He lets me go straight off and without any further delay. “I am truly sorry for that, Tori.”
“I am the one who is supposed to say sorry to you—”
“Whichever way is whichever!” He has cut me short abruptly. Okay. I agree with him seriously.
His phone pings and dings here and then. He fetches it out from his trousers’ hind pocket and quickly answers and responds to it. “Hey, Matt! Are you about to leave?” There is a moment of silence. Then, “You mean you are in the car right now. Fine, I will be on my way there for sure.”
“Is that him? Marie’s boyfriend whom you were just talking to?” That’s me—Tori—for sure!
“Yeah. They are about to leave now.”
“So soon?”
“Marie confessed that she is not feeling any well. They are taking her straight home where her doctor will meet up with her.”
Poor her! “What is suddenly wrong with her?”
“I don’t exactly know. I have to go anyway. Goodbye, Tori.”
“Goodbye, Rhys.” Shit! I had almost forgotten. I yell out to him as he is trotting away. “Hey, Ty! What about your jacket you left here with me?”
He stops for a little bit while and turns over to me to say this before he quickly swerves around to jog off his way. “I can’t afford to take even a step back towards you and risk having those guys leave me behind. This is an emergency case, Tori. Until later, my friend!”
My friend? He just called me ‘ my friend’? We are good friends then, I guess. Wait a minute! Isn’t that what I fucking damn told Courtney in my email text to her? Sure! I hurry my way speedily too back to the function room where the lush gala is taking place. At least this is some news to take back to the Graham House of Paparazzi. Suez Kuntz, our Senior Sales Woman there, will definitely love and adore this. We are going to make a few pretty good bucks off this, right? You can assuredly have your fingers crossed on it!
I know. Courtney must have by now tired in waiting for me to show up and I just don’t show myself up. Well, I just reveal my face to her frankly now. And she is standing there in a group of six ladies, speaking and conversing something merrily with them. The instant she sees me, she quickly excuses herself from their company and rushes over to meet up with me.
“Just who the hell did you go out for that damned walk, huh?” This is her first question and query to me. I know. She must be freaking puzzled and perplexed up with all this happening. Wait a second! Did she say ‘damned walk’?
“He has already left. You will be meeting him anyway.”
“Hmmnnnn……so you are taking on things with him that far, or am I not just in the clueless state here?”
I laugh at this. “We are only friends, Courtney. And friends meet and have fun with each other. It is as simple as that.”
“Okay. So what shall I do with this other guy that I told you that he happens to be so very much interested in you? He really wants to take you two out for dates and some loving, and here you are, spoiling and ruining up things and chances for the both of you.” My goodness! I just can’t believe it. She actually and truly is indeed angry and pissed off with me? Damn her for it! What is she thinking? That she is my All Girl Guide to Dating? Well, she is regrettably wrong this time around!
“Perhaps tell him that I am already seeing someone else.” Who is inexistent, mind you! There is more Hollywood and celebrity following-up and receptionist work to do here. I am pretty nasty damn busy, Courtney buys into it—or she doesn’t. If she wants me to seriously and strictly get into the whole dating of hers, then she better pay my bills up and also provide everything that I need and want in this life and what’s more the one to come. That way I will only have to search up and entertain men like no other women is able and capable of doing here on Earth. Up until that happens, I am not going to be dating anyone at all. I don’t even know if I will be able to date Rhys. I am simply friends with him. Hang on there. Where did he leave his dog—Bruce? I am so worried and apprehensive for the poor thing! Oh! I now remember. He left a little young cutely him in the watch-care and safeguard of Matt. Matt who? Demure? I can’t tell………..or even correctly guess for now. It is too soon for all that, or isn’t it?
“You don’t know how bad you are messing up things for yourself,” Courtney tells me with a sorry and pitying expression. Damn her! I don’t even need her pity and compassion. I can be what I want to be in life. I can be a nun or a mum, a whore or a bitch, a saint or a sorceress—just anything that I feel like wanting to be. And it will be me that would suffer for it and never her!
We are at long last in her very expensive car, heading our way back to our spacious apartment. I miss home already, and work, and sleep too! I miss everything. I miss the Cape and all the good and wonderful things that come from being there. I miss Cape Town especially. And Charles? Hell way no! He has got a whole life of his, and I have got mine own running here too.
I review the pictures that I have snubbed of Marie de Pierre on my very expensive camera. Priced at $7000, it is the most expensive item that I have ever bought thus far. And for work solely! If I were to get rid of it, I would sell it for around $5000. I mean it is all brand super new—just four months old—and very 100% faultless functional and likable and fashionable too. Courtney warned me to be always careful and possessive with it. Because once I lose it, the odds are high that I might lose my glamorous job too—she every day reminds me.
I am wondering quietly. Should I tell her this little rumor thing? That Matt and Marie de Pierre are dating. I moreover took photos of Matt and Rhys. These three—with Marie—were close together and very much friendly and fiddling about. Especially after Rhys introduced me to Marie herself in person. “Meet my chocolate friend here, Marie—she is Tori Wolf and she stays here in Vegas.”
Marie was like wholly perplexed and surprised with my being and presence here. Had she met me some place and I did something in her memory that she found a little heavy bit laughable and funny? “So she is your actual girlfriend, right?”
“Not her. She is just a mere friend.”
Not her? I am glad that he specified that clearly. I didn’t have to be mistaken for his little sneaky snaky snoopy mistress with a very big but see-ably expensive camera strapped on to her to bother and annoy this happy celebrity enjoying herself here before us. I am still in the Single Club since my split up with Charles. But then I know that I won’t rent here for any much long time either.
We are finally and at eventual last back at our apartment. Courtney and I really and absolutely haven’t talked that much since our journey started off from Riesman Hotel to our place here. Perhaps she is still bitterly disappointed and let down with me; perhaps I feel like I should consider giving this man a chance into my life whom she wants me to meet up with. What if he is not my actual type, huh? Maybe he is all this strangely and worlds-apart different altogether from me. We might possibly not suit and fit in with each other—there are odds and probabilities for that.
At least no one is going to do any cooking here for tonight. We have eaten enough already like mad. Yes, we did eat and devour and gobble up anything that we could get ourselves to grab hold of. What else is remaining to do perchance? Chat briefly, and then maybe go off to sleep. But in this terribly bad and bitterly sour mood of ours? What are we going to do here, huh? What exactly?
“Courtney—I feel like I should sleep now. I might have a busy day awaiting tomorrow and it is better and best if I take my rest in advance now. It shall all depend on the circumstance and nature of things nevertheless,” I tell her in a flatly and subdued-like tone of voice. I don’t want us to argue and quarrel anymore. I have already had enough for now!
She looks at me quietly and calmly at first and then tells me straightly, “Come sit down next to me, will you please?”
I have already stood up by now, but I do like she says in any case.
“I just want what is truly and positively best for you, Tori. I don’t want you picking any guy out there that might hurt and torment you in the long run. I don’t wish that to happen to you. Listen, dearest friend, this man I am talking about here………he is such a nice and wonderful gentleman. Please do consider giving him a chance into your life. I am certain and positive that he won’t frustrate and disconcert you awfully in the very end.”
“Are you so sure about what you are saying? I know that I have waited so long for this point in time, but I just want to be sure that this is the best ever moment to handle anything of this kind and sort.”
She smiles at me happily and blissfully. “Your feelings are quite very much right, Tori. This is the best time in your life to find love and be happily and truly in love. You are now twenty-five years old. This is the perfect age for any kind of woman to be reproductive and give birth to cutely, adorable children. Go on for it. Don’t let your fears and horrors of the unknown disturb and shatter your whole being up.”
Of course! It is not like I have to be making babies now and straight away. But she is right indeed. It is about time……………..it in fact is that time already. I hug and embrace her lovingly and dearly to myself. I love her. I adore her. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I thank her for everything……….everything that I have in this world and also the glorious one to come.
Once inside my room, I sit down on my bed to weight and think things over again. There is good chance of me taking my friendship status with Rhys to another high and reservedly special level. Then Courtney here on the other hand wants me to see this certain man of hers and well……….the object of our meeting is all too obvious and apparent in this case. We both want love and what better place to find it than in the hearts of each other. I have to sleep for now anyway.
With a lazy and careless hand, I take off Rhys’ jacket which I am at this precise moment wearing and then accidentally drop something out of his pocket. It is his CONTACT card; it is like an Identity Card even. There is his face, also his name beneath it, then his residential address, his work of place, his position there, his cell number, his email, his whatever. What am I supposed to do with it honestly speaking? Toss it without any second thought straight into the bin nearby that ever blazing fireplace of mine. That does not seem like a good idea at all. Probably not so! It must belong with me now. His scent? I inhale and breathe it in. My goodness! That gentleman smells so wonderfully great. Is this how he also smells in his bed and after taking on a steamy shower in his bathroom? I cannot keep in check my wild side and behavior itself. Damn me for purposely being this way and allowing myself to think and reason and act madly like this. I must sleep now…………I am really and gruesomely tired………….and tomorrow—it will just be another day where life is all too enjoyable and what's more depressing at the very same time…….ohh yeah!