Of Pearls, Rain, and Lemon bars
The rain was falling again. He was late. I sat beneath a café's awning, a cup of coffee on the table along with a sketch pad, though nothing was on it. To my right I could see people buying grain and vegetables from a street merchant. They had umbrella's and the like; rain never stopped people from making money or eating. To my left was a vulpine couple, like myself, standing in front of a jewelry store. The female was eyeing a flawless black pearl necklace priced at 545 euros. They talked for a bit, then the male kissed the vixen on the cheek and they continued walking.
"Excusez-moi monsieur," I turned my head to see a female high elf in an apron. She had shoulder length blond hair pulled into a ponytail and beautiful glowing blue eyes, "Puis-je vous intéresser à quelque chose à manger?"
"Oui, certains bars de citron serait bien." I said handing her a couple of euros. She smiled at me then left. The rain was only sprinkling, but the loud thunderclaps were enough to make people go into their homes. I sipped at my coffee gingerly, and soon my lemon bars I ordered were there as well.
"Tu as toujours préfèrent bonbons, L'amour." I heard from behind me. I looked to see a white wolf standing there in a muscle shirt and a pair of blue jeans. His eyes were a soft blue haze: He was only slightly blind.
"Your French is still a bit formal," I said in my English accent, "but formality is always better than saying something insulting. How are you?"
For too long Love seemed like an illusion. Its golden promise obscured my reason and confusion. Too often its favors were thrust upon. An invasion. An intrusion. Then....
Then there was him.
"I am well, although I could do without this rain." He gestured to the street. He walked over to me, hand outstretched. He was partially blind, but still blind. And needed often to make sure he wasn't running into something.
"How you make it around Paris...I will never know." I said as he sat down.
"Bonjour, Que puis-je vous obtenez?" The high elf was back again.
"Juste du café et des crème de noisette." he said. She smiled and left us.
He was a revelation. Forbidden, yet familiar. He stood before me when we first met all those years ago when I was merely a teenager, hand outstretched...Not to give, not to take, but to simply...caress. We kissed. A passageway to secrets unspoken, promises unbroken, answerers to questions not yet asked... a glimpse of the faces behind our masks.
"How long have we been together, Love?" he asked. I smiled and chuckled. I remember as if it were yesterday. I was fifteen--maybe sixteen--and I was sitting at this very café. He approached me. The same wolf all those years ago. He was older than me...by twenty-five years. I always did have an affinity for older men. He was fifty now....and I twenty-five.
"Ten years." I answered. The high elf came out again with the coffee, and my love handed her a couple of euros.
"And no one knows that I stole you away when you were still a minor?" he raised an eyebrow.
"I never did listen to my parents...now did I?"
"Your mother still hates me."
"She doesn't!"
"She does!" he said, "And your father still wants to shoot me!"
"Only a little bit...but they love you!" I said laughing.
That day we stood, he burned in my mouth like an ancient truth! And then as...gently as a ghost...he was inside me.
His essence rising beneath my chest. His heartbeat pulsing beneath my breast (as a figure of speech of course). Desire burst from him like a string of flawless pearls. Between my thighs... his hands guided me to undiscovered lands. Pleasures never known to man.
We were silent. The only sound was the reverberating noise of raindrops falling. A tear fell from my eye. And he caught it with his hand and wiped it away.
"Do not weep for me, Zanier." he said softly.
"I love you!" I said harshly. "It isn't fair!"
"Life was never fair to begin with." he said. I turned from him--how could he accept this so easily?!"
He took my sketch book and looked through it. Pages filled with him, of us, and of roses, flickered across the canvas that remained immune to the affects of time.
"They are beautiful."
"You can't even see them." I said harshly. My eyes widened and my hand covered my mouth. Oh God... Why did I have to say that!? But wait. I looked to see him chuckling.
"Yes your right, but I know they are beautiful." he put the book down and looked at me. "It's because they were drawn by you."
And as we lay together, the first cool morning beneath out fur, offering a silent benediction... we knew that we weren't alone anymore. That this harsh and unforgiving world...we found our own sanctuary, our own Heaven, our
_own angels...and our own God. _
I was speechless, and tears flew from my eyes again. He never stopped smiling. He was never one for sadness or anger... he was always like the snow. Soft, welcoming, and always there when u needed him. He got up from his chair and hugged me. Other patrons and people looked at us in disgust, some in astonishment, and others in happiness.
"The day I met you Zanier has no comparison. The day I met you was like seeing the earth from the dark side of the moon. It was like finding Eden...and continues to be like living in Elysium." he said. Tears beamed on his blinding eyes, "I will always love you...but I want to make this official." he got down on his knees and pulled a box from his pant's pocket. He didn't...
"Will you marry me?" he asked nonchalantly. He opened the box. "We may not have long together...but I want to spend every waking moment with you. I know what I want now, and I know I want you. Will you make a dying old wolf happy and be my husband?" France did not allow same-sex marriage, but still, we could be together regardless and call each other our partner.
We had our wedding near the ocean. Vows were taken, but it was officially legal. It was just something we would have to uphold within ourselves. My parents didn't approve, but stood by me always, and my father, being only ten years older than my husband, took him in his arms and hugged him as a son.
We were happy for only a short while...before his cancer took him away from me.
I stood on the precipice of sorrow. Its cold and dark embraced coiled itself around me like an anaconda suffocating its prey. His tombstone was beautiful. Crafted by his father, it depicted a weeping leonine angel with a scythe hooking around a rosebud. Rosaries and flowers of every type were placed around his resting place. My father stood beside me, hand over my shoulder. I looked into his eyes, and he knew, the pain I was feeling. Mother died a few months before this, and father was too old to live by himself. So we moved in with him. I was thirty now, and I was alone. God, I shouldn't be feeling this till I was in my seventies but still.
Etched into the stone was a poem that he wrote.
"Love is beautiful.
Fierce and strong.
An insatiable all-consuming fire.
A feral lion, that is pacing on the red hot embers of desire.
_Love is a thirst that cannot be quenched. _
A sacred flame that cannot be drenched by icy showers of sobriety.
Or a society that is strangled by notions of propriety.
So what kind of love is this?
This love that dare not speak its name?
This love that holds his head in shame?
Is this so-called "love" even worthy of its name?
True love doesn't hide.
It doesn't hide.
And it will never be denied the right to sing its song
From dusk till dawn.
Love laughs at fear!
And cries out its name for all to hear!
Love is beautiful, fierce and loud.
But most of all...
LOVE IS PROUD!"
I knelt down and placed a white rose on before his picture. Tears over took me and I began crying again.
"I love you Jonathan, and I will never forget you." I look to the sky once more, and thunder roared from the heavens, and the rain began to fall again.
Only this time...it was more fierce.
Who said that only opposites attract?
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First I would like to mention that the poem I used isn't mine. It the words to an audio track from Cirque du Soleil's "Zumanity" entitled "meditation"
Also the parts where the story are in italics are also from Cirque du Soleil's "Zumanity"
They are the words to audio track entitled "Water bowl" or something of those lines.
I will put a link to the Youtube vides so all who read this will know of them, also in the words to "Water bowl" I changed a few lines. Any lines that you don't hear in the audio track I link is something I made up to help the mood of the story. I take NO CREDIT for anything that I have mentioned that is owned by Cirque du Soleil. Everything else I made up. Do not alter, or post any of this without my permission. The story is Copyright too me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD7UWFrJ9vc For Meditation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdMSIFQBhD4 For Water Bowl, the words begin somewhere in the middle of the song.
Thank you for reading!
Alexanderxkiba