Paraluman (18+)

13th

A/N:

Paraluman means a beautiful lady.

* * *

They call her a bitch.

Weird but Lola was starting to see herself as one. She wasn't happy about it, mind you. But it didn't make that fact untrue.

Lola sighed and fixed her hair in careless, lustrous waves the way her lover, Arthur, loved.

By the mention of his name, melancholia enveloped around Lola like a forbidding cloak. She stomped her feet and shook her head. She shouldn't be forlorn. Shouldn't feel miserable. For today was something special for her and Arthur.

February 13th. The day when she could be Arthur's number one.

Lola lifted her left ringless hand and stared hard at it with sheer disappointment and acceptance. She was already thirty-three and she still had no family to make or even a husband to hold on to.

At least, you have a lover, she thought and the heaviness in her heart grew. It was too heavy to bear she wondered why she was still standing erect.

The clock struck at 7 in the evening and Lola stared at the mirror for one last time in case she left any tiny detail to make her appearance perfect but not too perfect. She was aiming for a natural look of beauty. For a plain looking oblong face, bushy eyebrows and pointy nose, one must work hard to keep her man interested in her.

Though she didn't know why she was still working hard for it when Arthur always assured her she had the most beautiful tiny lips, green eyes, and dark red curly hair. Granted that he told her that much when she was dressed in her mundane pooh pajamas, just-woke-up face, and morning breath.

The sound of a knock at her door snapped Lola out of her reverie. She took one last glance at the mirror and ignored the regret she saw.

Her tight purple dress stretched in her every silent barefooted step. Before she could expel another breath, Arthur was already in front of her. Dressed in his customary khaki beige shorts and a black shirt folded upward to his elbow. His washed brown hair was still damp from the shower. His stark gray eyes bore expectantly at her.

She swallowed her sorrow and smiled. "I see that you used the key."

Arthur smiled boyishly and dangled the key of her apartment like he held his most prized possession. "Convenient."

He started to walk determinedly like a prime lion towards her after pocketing the keys and taking her hand away from the doorknob. He moved with confident masculine grace. Every movement calculated and precise. She could feel the rush in her veins by the mere contact, momentarily washing away the heaviness in her heart.

Next thing she knew she was in his arms. Right where she really belonged. Her nose met just below his right shoulder and she sniffed. Ah, she thought, she missed his smell. The smell of home.

"Hungry?" She asked after he kissed her breathlessly. She licked her lips and taste him. He watched briefly as her lips moved as she recited the menu for tonight. He liked her lips, he said. Liked it even more if it was plump and hot after he kissed her.

The heaviness in her heart went back to torture her. She drew her eyes away from his.

She can't stand it. She can't stand what she saw in those gray eyes. How could she be so dumb not to notice it years ago? The look of contentment in his eyes pierced her heart.

When all she felt was far from contentment.

Uncertain, she led him into her dining room. Her condo was not too extravagant but it spoke loud with personality. Redwood blended well with white & black that lines her walls and her sofa set. Perfectly engraved wood chairs stood beside her dining table covered with a white cloth with three candles resting on the center of it. She smiled proudly as the three-course meal lay neatly around it, momentarily crushing her bubbling emotions inside her chest.