“Love suits you!” I mocked my husband’s voice.
He was right, and I was finally understanding what he had meant. The men suddenly attracted to me were not ordinary men. The more I told them no, the more of a challenge they found me.
“There is nothing between us.” This from me.
The rest from the men of the night:
You do not know this for sure.
If your sister is the moment, you are the woman for always.
She is just the kind of spicy dish I prefer.
It was beginning. The prediction my husband had made in the water taxi what felt like centuries ago. Our love was attracting hard hitters, and we were going to have to stand against them.
Is he standing against them?
According to theserpentinequeen, he was not. He was falling into bed with them.
I plopped on my bed, turning over, making a frustrated noise into my pillow, kicking my legs as if I were a big kid (my sister!), before I sat up, then got to my feet. I rocked for a second, the entire world spinning, before I took a deep breath and hustled to the balcony.
The scent.
It circulated in the air around me, made me dizzy, off kilter, as if I was flying and about to crash at the same time. My heart raced. Skipped. My stomach filled with the very same things I wore on my back. Winged things. My thighs tightened, and myfigaached. I closed my eyes, squeezing the railing until my knuckles turned white.
If this was some kind of episode, and perhaps I was dying, I hoped when the good Lord took me, it would be to the blissful sleep I had been experiencing. This was where I would be whenever Mariano Leone Fausti found me. Riding my cloud.
“Mywife.” The two words were said in a warm rasp against my neck, in Italian. I couldfeelthe heat from his body against mine. “The last time we were together, I do not recall you resorting to tantrums.”
I breathed out, my hands releasing the cold stone, but caressing it. “The last time we were together, if this is not a dream, I was a different woman.”
He turned me around so fast, my head got woozy again.
My eyes flew to his.
“Tell me I am not dreaming,” he said in Italian, his voice low, full of glass shards that seemed to be cutting us both.
I shook my head. “I do not know,” I whispered. “If I am in one, I never want to wake up.”
He lifted me off my feet, shut the doors to the balcony, locking them, and brought me back into the room. He set me down, his eyes taking me in slowly.
His manic stare stilled on the wings.
“No,” he said, and his voice almost sounded panicked. He ripped them from my costume. “Angels do not live on earth,” he said in Italian, flinging them away from me, as though they might attack me. “They live in heaven. Away fromme.” He pounded his chest, and the way he had saidaway from mewould be lodged in my heart for the rest of my life.
His tone was…agonized.
So was the look on his face. I had never seen him so disheveled before. His hair was a mess. His eyes were…tired, dark circles underneath. He seemed thinner, which did not suit his strong frame.
It brought tears to my eyes, but my hands still curled at my sides.
“What are you doing here?” I barely got out, allowing him to see my pain but also my anger.
“My wife doesn’t want to see me?” He laughed, and there was nothing warm about it. It was colder than the weather outside. “Too many suitors?”
Atta’s voice echoed inside of my head.Man, does he have some nerve!
“What is this supposed to mean?” My eyes narrowed on his, but I almost wanted to either run to the door or the balcony, find an escape from his overwhelming presence.
