(A wiggy experiment in present tense and artsy writing portraying sequential mental images brought on by reading Interpreting the Prophetic Word by Willem A. VanGemeren, first part of chapter four. So that makes these images loosely based on the first chapter of Hosea.)
What
if we could see Jesus’ face every time WE are unfaithful?…
By
Aaron Wilkinson
Copyright: Feb. 2000
She draws a quick breath at the sight of the darkly attractive man on her doorstep. He holds a bouquet of fragrant flowers in one hand.
“A gift.” He smiles a mysterious smile and extends the vibrant blooms.
She casts her eyes downward. “I- I can’t. I’ve married, you know. I can not continue in this fashion.”
For a moment something passes across his face. Frustration? Irritation? But it is gone, and the smile never flickers. “So, you’ve said before.” The dark man steps past her into the house. As his body brushes hers, a myriad of remembered sensations pass through her in a shiver to rival the chill of deep winter.
“Are you cold?” he asks. Then without waiting for an answer, “I thought we might just talk a little.” Again the glorious flowers are proffered.
She remains looking at the spot where he had been standing on the porch. He gives a little sigh then says in a conceding tone, “Very well, then. Consider them a wedding gift from me. Surely your husband won’t deny you the innocent happiness these most magnificent orchids bring?”
A little voice in her head whispers to her alone. “Your husband,” it says. Nothing more.
“They are just flowers,” she replies to the voice. She closes the door.
“Won’t you take off your coat then, sir,” she says primly to the man. Hang it by the door, and feel free to sit in the parlor. I’ve just made some tea, and we can take it in there.” She pauses for only a moment. “While we talk.”
When she returns with the pot, he has made himself at home. He lounges grandly on a couch, almost arrogant, but not in the least unhandsome. His scent that she remembers from so many times before seems to fill the room, fill her head. It promises things she cannot remember without blushing.
The little voice hisses slightly louder. “Your husband,” it reminds.
“It is only tea,” she responds, and shakes her head to clear the smell of the beautiful man. It works only vaguely. She sits on the opposite side of the sofa, stiffly pours the tea, and holds the cup to him. He stares at the cup, then into her eyes. She feels she may loose herself in the two shaded pools, until he laughs deeply and takes the cup from her.
The spell broken, she stares indignantly. Her face demands to know exactly what he finds so amusing.
He chuckles at her look, takes a sip of tea, then puts the cup on the table. “Honestly my prize. You do look so right and proper, as if someone had tied the stick of a broom up your back. If this is what married life does to you then God forbid I should ever enter into such a contract.” He laughs again out loud. Then he turns his face to her looking intently. “Tell, me my dear… Is it your husband that has you tight as a sailor’s knot?”
Her eyes grow wide. She isn’t sure whether to be angry, or shocked. She wants to defend her husband, to prove him the honorable man that he is, but she isn’t quite sure how to start. “I can do…that is, he gives me liberty to act as I please, only he is not pleased with some things-“ her outburst is hushed by a finger on her lips. The good-looking young man has leaned forward.
“Sush, sush, my love. I did not mean to force your anger. I simply wanted to bring back the fiery, sensual woman, whom I have loved all these years. It seems this husband of yours has changed you into an unfeeling being.” He settles back once more.
“So are you happy here, my dove? It is a bit smaller than our place isn’t it? Does your mate provide you with all the pleasures of life as I did?”
She wants to yell at him. She wants to tell him in cold tones that she has not changed one bit, but it isn’t true. She has changed. She is still the same person, only different. Better. But his touch has done something to her. She cannot be angry with him. Not now.
“Your husband.” The little voice speaks inside her head greater in volume this time.
“Be quiet. It is but a touch,” she counters.
She answers him. “It is indeed a small house, and not luxurious by any means, but it is cozy. We are happy here, he and I. He does not give me the same pleasures you offered, but he gives me different ones, pleasures that are every bit as nice.”
His eyebrows convey his incredulity.
She continues. “And his father is rich, richer than you can imagine. Soon my husband will come into a great deal of wealth.”
“He told you that did he?” A little smile plays with the corners of perfect lips.
She falters slightly as a seed of doubt falls into the soft soil of her heart. She begins again, as if to convince herself. “He is a good and loving man. He treats me well, demands nothing but my loyalty, and my love.”
The man opposite her nods knowingly, mockingly. For some reason, it waters the seed.
“Most of all,” she whispers. “He knows of my past, what I am… what I was, and he does not hold it against me.”
“Doesn’t he?” asks the man. “Neither did I. But then I am your past, aren’t I?” The confidence in his eyes holds her as the charmer’s notes hold a snake. He leans forward once more. She can feel his silky breath slip across her face. “Can you honestly say that those years weren’t filled with experiences beyond compare, ecstasy you never knew before or since?”
Her throat feels dry, her voice is husky. “I…”
The dark man puts a hand on her arm, his smirk is perfumed with seduction. “Truthfully now.” He breaths, bare inches from her cheek.
“Your husband!” shouts the voice.
“It is just a smile!” she hollers back, desperately.
His eyes are her world. They are black fountains that promise pleasure past what she can dream. “I don’t…”
“Can he do this?” he whispers into her neck.
She gasps as his kiss seems to burn into the soft skin at her chest. How had he gotten her blouse open so quickly? Somehow she finds her arms around his head. His head moves lower and she feels supple lips caresses about her breasts like a breeze. Now her upper garments are on the floor by the couch. Her hands move to the top of his back and head, pressing him to herself. All thoughts flee except the one that whispers in hushed tones of surrender and letting him perform the magic she has known before. Even now, pleasure cries for crescendo in her head. She knows he hasn’t yet begun. She slides him on top of her as she falls back against the soft cushions.
His words are so muffled against her body, that she almost can’t understand them. Almost.
“No, I thought not.”
A moan escapes her throat and is drown out by the voice in her mind.
“Your husband!” it screams
“Shut-up!” she shrieks back. Her hands move to the front of his shirt meaning to rip it off.
The door bangs open. Her husband appears in the doorway. His green eyes flash life and energy. “Good news, my love!” he cries before he sees what is there.
He takes it in, the clothes, the darkly handsome man, her hands on his chest. She watches him assume the only thing an all trusting, all loving husband can. The furry in his eyes does not contain anger for her, and the omission breaks her heart.
In an instant he is on the intruder, lifting the man off her in one smooth motion and throwing him to the floor. The he kneels beside her.
“Are you hurt, my dear?” He is anxious, oh so anxious. “If he has harmed one hair-“ His wide, worried eyes narrow and he turns to the would-be adulterer, just rising behind him. The flash of a blade fills her vision, and her husband stumbles back against her. When he pushes away, back towards the trespasser, he leaves the bloody print of his hand on one breast. She struggles for breath.
It is not a fight really. Though the dark man has a knife, her husband is stronger by three times at least, and he disarms the assailant with ease. When the scuffle has calmed, she sees her muscled husband standing over the man. The knife is gone. The beaten man’s lips, once so soft are split now. One of the sensual eyes is swollen near shut. Her husband’s fists are clenched. Blood drips slowly to the floor from a hand. His voice is filled with holy wrath.
“Now, I will finish-“
No!” The word slips out and is followed by others. “I mean… Please. Don’t.”
Her husband turns his head uncertainly. She cannot meet his eye.
“You-” Her chosen mate swallows. She can almost hear the emotions battling across his face, Trust fighting Hurt, Disbelief combating Suspicion, Concern being overpowered by Confusion. “You stand for this coward?”
“I told you. She can never be fully yours.” Strangely the dark man’s arrogance nauseates her now.
Slowly she raises her guilty eyes to her husband’s questioning ones. He searches.
“Once she has tasted-“ begins the man on the floor.
Casually, without looking away from her face, her husband kicks the heel his boot between the man’s eyes. The force bounces the sinister man’s head off of the floor, and he is quiet.
Her husband finds in her look what he had hoped was not there. His voice is a whisper. “You let him in?” A question he knows the answer to. A question he must ask.
She wants to cry, to sob her heart out of her chest, but there are no tears in his eyes, and it does not seem right that she should cry while he does not. Not in her place.
“Yes.” Her tones are just as hushed.
His eyes drop to study without comprehension, the gash in his hand, slowly pulsing blood across his palm. A lump rises in her throat.
“You sat with him.” There is no question this time, but she must answer.
“Yes.”
She had not thought he could look any more crestfallen. She is mistaken.
He speaks haltingly now. “You- were letting him- to-“
She spares him the agony of continuing, though the word she answers slices her soul into ribbons.
“Yes.”
She expects her husband to fly into a mad rage, or perhaps to begin sobbing like a babe, maybe to turn cold and bitter beneath an invisible, impenetrable shield, but he does none of these.
“Oh,” he says to the blood drops spattered on the floor.
She stands and placing her hands on the sides of his head, turns it toward her. There she watches the emotions race by like wild horses across the desert: shock, bewilderment, sorrow, despair. They parade around his face as though they are separate from him, tormenters that she has loosed upon his innocence. And under it all, she sees something that makes her want to rip the spirit out of her body and use it for a thing to weep into. She sees loss. His eyes are blank as if he has lost everything and nothing more matters.
Slowly, from the depths of his soul, he comes to himself and seems startled that she holds his head.
“I think I must talk a walk.” He says absently, unfeelingly. “I will be back presently.”
Mechanically, gently, he reaches up and removes her hands from his head. He walks slowly to the doorway. When he turns back, a perplexed frown creases his mouth. There is nothing in his eyes. It seems as if the great man is lost within himself. She sees in him a little child, sad and alone. She can only hear the end of his soft mumble, “…forsaken me?” Then he is gone.
His presence was all that was holding her together. Now his absence seems to pack the room like an oppression and squeeze the air from her lungs. She gathers her blouse from the floor, steps over her unconscious seducer, and dashes out the door. She is halfway up the stairs before her chest can convulse in a mutilated sob. When she reaches the bedroom, she throws the door to behind her, and herself upon the bed. Face down she cries, devoid of control.
When her body is dry of tears and her pillow is soaked with the same, she lies there still. Her swollen eyes sting from the cold salt water she presses out of the pillow. It is nothing next to the pain she has dealt.
He said he would return. He has never broken his word to her. Yet she can’t help but wonder if this time perhaps he will stay out there wherever his walk takes him. She pictures him sitting on a log by the brook day after day, staring and not seeing the laughing water pass beneath his eyes until thirst finally takes him and he dies. The thought of his death brings more tears where she had thought there were no more.
“Surely I will not cause his
death. Surly he will not die
because of me.”
He did.