1996

[context: the girl, a writer, was financially unstable, for a while she lived in and out of places and jobs. she befriended michael, a rich recordlabel owner, and he becomes her maecenas. an intense relationship develops, even love, but michael is married.]

warning: dark and messy + mature content

That poor wife. That poor wife of his, in her home with white curtains and served dinners and silken linens, her hair in curlers. It was all I could think of when he looked at me in the way that he did, as if he opened his soul to me like opening a book, the wife with the curlers probably nothing more then a vague remembrance in the back of his head. He stood there, Michael, by the door of the apartment, his arms weakly beside his figure, his hands in the dark trench-coat.
"Shouldn't you go back home? To your wife?"
My cigarette's smoke blew out the window as a faded dream would, the edge of the small strip coloured red from my lipstick. I heard his deep sigh, trembling slightly.
"You think she cares?"
"Don't make up excuses."
I took a glass of old wine in my hands to sip from it, the wine having long gone sour. I placed myself upon the chair behind the mahogany bureau, scattered with multiple notes of character studies or grocery lists. I felt his presence near me and my heartbeat rose, because despite everything that had happened, despite the scarring of my soul and hurting of my heart I was somehow still capable of childish love and affection.
"What are you doing here, Michael?" My voice was blank and empty, my gaze keeping its focus upon the random letters in front of me, scribbling nothingness with a pen upon the paper.
"I payed you back. I payed everything back. I said thank you. There's no need for you to be here. It's done. We've done nothing we have to be ashamed of — if you leave now, forever, it'll be like nothing ever happened."
Suddenly, I felt his hands clamping mine, desperately and harsh, and when my gaze shifted to the right, I saw him towering over me like a merciless, yet desperate god. The dark orbs penetrating me, seeing my soul, the sharp jaw clenched. He pulled me up, so that I would face him, but I couldn't look into his breaking stare.
"If there's anything I need to be ashamed of," he started, his voice heavy with trembling emotion, "then its that I've never been honest."
He took my face in his hands, clasping it, his nails setting themselves into my cheeks, sure to leave an imprint.
"You need me. And I," he gulped, "I need you. I need you! I can't leave you!"
I shook my head, weakly, knowing I had long surrendered. Finally, my eyes met his, and I was surprised to see them watered, dangerously close to letting out rainfalls. I had never seen him cry. I knew he was emotional, but he was also disciplined: he knew not to cross a line with me — pretending he was just a friend who cared. To see him now, before me, begging me, struck a string in the very core of my being, as if a wall that I had tried to build up for years suddenly came crashing down. As if my shield of protection melted away as I watched, just because his warm hands were around my cheeks and his voice pleaded in my ears. There was no stopping it now.
"Oh, god damnit Michael."
I pressed my lips upon his, feeling them for the first time, deep and tasting of mint and passion. I melted. His arms around me, because if they weren't I'd have fainted — it was all too much, the sudden eruption of years of contained emotion. He was all over me, his lips on my cheeks, my eyes, my neck, hungry like a wolf devouring its prey, and I just as much. We didn't say anything, we couldn't stop it even if we wanted to. This was somehow bigger then we were, and nothing could be said to keep us apart in that moment. It was all rough and fast: his hands ripping my blouse open, pulling down my skirt, us going down until we reached the floor. I was naked long before he'd even undone his tie — a mocking representation of how it had always been with us, me, naked and vulnerable and weak, and him...always in his best suit. There I laid on the floor, him atop of me and making love to me as if he'd never known love before. He grunted like a madman, and I simply sighed in tormented bliss.
"Goddamn it Michael," I called, wrapping my legs around his torso. He gazed in my eyes, unable to speak, the rough fabric of the carpet rubbing against my back each time he pushed. And while finally we made it known to each other that we cared for each other in every way, the door opened — we did not notice, how could we? How could we have prevented it? Maybe it had to happen, for, in retrospect, it all eventually led to us being together: her immediately filing for divorce, Michael moving out, the sultry look he gave me months later over at the bar... but it nevertheless did not diminish the horror of the situation, for there was the wife, bleak, small, in agonising pain when she saw us doing what she had been deprived of: love. The scream sounded lost in space, gone in the moment she let it out, and it happened too fast to remember it exactly. Michael jumping up, closing his pants, me looking for my clothes and it all going wrong. Mere seconds of it all going down, to hell!
"Oh my God, oh my God," she screamed, shouting, completely lost. I had always been a stoic person — life deemed me so — , but in that moment I felt her pain as if it were my own, but still I did not hate myself for it, because I could not have prevented what happened. Michael hurrying towards her, mumbling empty excuses. She kept shouting and shouting, deafening us with those high-pitched shrieks.
"With that black whore? With her?"
The curlers lost their effect when she started pulling on strands of hair, dropping the satin gloves. The entirety of her embellishments seemed entirely wrong in this place on the wrong side of the tracks: the fur coat, the little mules, even the colour of her skin. Oh, how privileged she was, but how badly I felt for her! That poor, poor wife of his. Michael tried to get hold of her hands, but she pushed him away. Her face showed shock and utter repulsion. Within moments, she was at the door again, and turning to Michael, she pointed at him: "Don't you fucking dare follow me! I should never have married you, you fucking cheater! Son of a — aah!"
And then she ran, she ran away, and I was still helplessly trying to get the first button of the blouse. Michael stood there, even more lost then he seemed before, shifting towards me and then back to the door.
"The fucking irony," I whispered through my lips, getting dressed quickly while trying to find the right words. There were tears forming in my eyes, but before being able to wipe them away Michael noticed them.
"Look," he started, sighing heavily, "I'm sorry I pulled you into this situation."
I shook my head, making a useless gesture as if to say that it all didn't matter now.
"It's best if you leave."
I felt my heart breaking when I saw him leave through the door. For the first time in years, I had allowed a man to become a prominent figure in my life, in the vain hope that he and I might...but now, it had all gone to shambles for not the first time. That evening I watched the sky turn dark on New York City, tasting the saltiness of tears on my lips and whispering to myself that I at least would have another story to tell.

It was five months later, when I was in the midst of publishing a book about the pains and sorrows of a forlorn writer, when I saw him again. He had placed dozens of calls in the days after our catastrophe, the one time I answered just because I had to tell him to stop. He understood, he said. Mutual friends told me his divorce was quick and easy, for she did not want a single thing that may have had his imprints on them — they also said that for her this was merely an excuse to finally get rid of him and runaway with some rookie she'd always had on the side. Michael was a mere money machine to her. I didn't care. We had made an unforgivable mistake by ever giving in. I had forgiven myself, but that did not mean everything could go back to what once was. But fate, or whatever creature that pulled the strings from above, had it otherwise: suddenly, when I was out trying to drink my sorrows away with cheap martinis, he apparently had the same idea on his mind. Our eyes met from across the bar, his dark and deep, his gaze never having lost its intensity. A white coat hung over his shoulders, contrasting with the darkness of the curls that loosely were tied into a bun. For a mere moment I thought it was a vision, a Fata Morgana that my mind had made up to soften the impact of his missing. But the chills I felt when his hand touched mine to greet me seemed as real as the drink I had just consumed. His hand placed itself on my cheek, wiping away a tear I did not notice had just fallen.
"Oh, Michael," I sighed, finally giving in, pushing myself into his warm embrace that smelled of greenery and dark wood. At that moment I realised something: that he and I would never be able to forget, or ignore whatever force it was that pulled us together. No matter distance, no matter time, no matter people, we would always find our way back to each other. I could hate myself for it, but the love would not alter, it never would.
"My love," he mumbled, "don't you see that we can't be apart?"
I shook my head, smiling despite the tears.
Because indeed, we could not. We belonged together, he and I.
"Michael?"
With the tips of his fingers he raised my chin, staring into the depth of my entire being.
"Take me home?"

—

dedicated to TheRealXonny  , she requested this theme. i deviated a bit from your original request, i hope you don't mind! this one was a bit hard! thanks for the request and thanks for reading!

for my other readers, feel free to dm me!

lots of love and yours truly,
magiconthemoon