Beyond Grace [ON INDEFINITE HOLD]

Beyond Grace: 5

Howbeit, which blessings should he count? Was it the lost love he once shared with Melody? The love so slow to come and so quick to go. This solitude could hardly be a virtue, could it? Surely now, with everything so long gone: his family and friends pillaged from his once-life, the little “blessings” must have waxed and waned.

And then the rich chocolate palette of another woman intruded into his vision. He could see it – that little light, intrinsic to only a select few, illuminating those exonerating beautiful orbs of life. He could see the words ardently waiting on her lips.

She leaned forward, revealing a better view of her sumptuous cleavage, her breath fogging the glass…

With a jolt, Cash realised this was Mariah and this was reality. The knocks had been her; she was the break. She was his blessing. One sole blessing to count, one of the many he must accumulate. She must be…

His door opened and he stepped out to greet her, softly kissing her flushed cheeks. Gaze barely wavering from his, she returned his kisses – hers, instead, boldly on his lips. Her eyes skipped over the house she must have come from, as if it was not there. She was embarrassed, Cash realised.

Everyone chooses to ignore what we deem to be stigma; the same way a woman applies makeup to disguise a blemish, a flaw. Mariah lusted for makeup to conceal the disfigurement of her home. Cash could empathise; he once wanted that too. Now Ma could not look at him for more than a minute without crying...

As they drove to 'Amour', the car was permeated by a lingering silence. Not a silence forced like a poignant veil that shrouded their reality. It was more a comfortable silence; stolen glances catching on the other and warm smiles bubbling on their lips.

The restaurant itself was extrinsically fancy, with ethereal glass chandeliers and fabric folded napkins. The sort of thing Keira would recommend for them, predictably. Wonder lit up Mariah’s eyes as she absorbed the luxuriant scene before her. Their eyes connected, a flustered pink tinge touching her cheeks.

As they were escorted to their seats, Cash couldn’t help but lust to know more. More about the way she would carry herself with such air; such presence. More of her laughter. More of her.

The waiter with his funny trimmed moustache and ‘perfecto’ black apron tied oh-so-neatly around his waist took their orders, promising them “only ze finest for ze madame and monsieur”. It was only after he left that they burst out laughing. Joy was now such a privilege, yet with Mariah it seemed to spill like butter from their lips.

“So what’s your story?” she mused as the waiter captiously filled their glasses with cerise red Merlot. “Police officer, I hear.”

Raising her glass in to her lips, a wry smile marked her toast to him. Light refracted like millions of rubies as Cash swirled the wine around and around the crystal wine glass. He raised the flask to his lips, eyes never straying from hers as he took a meagre draught. Corners of his lips caught on her smile, on that hard-to-place wryness she emulated so perfectly.

With a dilatory breath, Cash could already taste the bitterness of the alcohol on his tongue. The emerging feeling of giddiness already threatened to cascade over his depression. Alongside another measured sip, an exonerating weight was languidly lifted from his shoulders.

Cash laughed softly, “I do my part,” he admitted. “You?”

Mariah's thick eyelashes fluttered as she studied him, her glass lolling as an afterthought in her palm. Her tongue slowly traced over each plump lip, pondering the silence. The comfortable silence.

“Nurse,” she breathed; a certain huskiness to her voice rendering the viscous animalistic purr that enticed Cash so much...

Their food arrived with an extravagant flourish. Unnecessary, howbeit, in the same way that the plastic rubicund rose on his table hovered beguilingly in a water-filled vase.