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Date Posted: 11:07:34 10/04/07 Thu
Author: celtgirl ()
Subject: Here 'tis Miss Sallie, it's not quite complete, but the snippet is more or less self-contained>>>>
In reply to: Sallie 's message, "Had to jump out of lurkdom to ask -- Care to share it, Cindy? ;)" on 09:59:34 10/04/07 Thu

Copyright 2007 Cindy Brandner

‘Someone once said that great wealth layers things over, that we cannot perceive the truth of anything when it’s swaddled and lacquered in money, that wealth perpetuates its own illusions and the only real truth is to be found in the dirty hovel of the poor man. At the time,” Belinda said in a perfectly calm tone though tears continued to stream down her face, “I thought it was just the precious theory of some pampered intellectual, who rarely saw the light outside of academia’s gilded halls. But I’m wondering if I wasn’t wrong afterall, that perhaps wealth indeed does build some set of gorgeous castles in the air. If a full belly and a warm bed skews our vision dangerously.”

“Belinda,” Jamie said softly, one hand moving out into air, carefully as if suddenly he couldn’t see, “how long have you been here?”

“All day,” she said quietly, “and much like Goldilocks I’ve learned far more about the bears than I’m comfortable with. I suppose,” she said and there was no mirth in the words, “you’ll have to eat me now and bury the bones under the house with all the other skeletons.”

“Belinda, I-”

“Please don’t Jamie, it’s too late for subterfuge, if I loved you less I might let you lie to me yet again but as I don’t love you less, I can’t.”

“And what is it about the bears that’s disillusioned you? Is the bed too big or small?” Jamie asked, his tone without the bite he’d meant to infuse it with.

“Too small for the number of people inhabiting it,” Belinda said wearily. “Of course some might say a woman who snoops through the private papers of another deserves what she gets.”

“Some might, but I won’t,” Jamie said quietly. “I’m going to turn on a light Belinda.”

“Why?” she asked, “Do you think if I see that beautiful, deceitful face of yours I’ll lose the memory of today? Well here’s a news flash for you darling, I love you in all your parts now, the mere sound of your voice makes me weak in the knees, there’s not a room in my life that’s complete without your presence. I’m susceptible to it all. I daresay if you were to lie to me now I’d believe you, because I so badly want to Jamie, I so very badly want to.”

“Shall I lie to you then, Belinda?” he asked, now standing close enough to touch her.

“No Jamie, if you really loved me you wouldn’t have to ask that question, you’d know lies were necessary, that lies were the only thing that’s going to salvage the situation. Truth is something you save for a friend and that’s what I am isn’t it? A good bear would know his part, would know that he ought to feed me my porridge and send me on my way, a good bear would know to lie, but you’re not going to lie to me are you?”

“No,” he said wearily, “I don’t suppose I am.”

She heard a rustle of paper, the sound of a match struck against stone and then the hesitant hiss of fire catching onto newsprint.

She watched the flame as it crawled out from under the paper, turning from blue to gold in the process. It sparked the ends of Jamie’s hair as it lay, freshly trimmed, over the round of his ear, limning his face with living colour.

“They say that language was the thing that civilized us, but I always thought it was fire. That once we discovered fire, how to light the night and push the demons back, it was what divided us from the cave and I believe that’s when we learned the art of lying. Words and fire, the two things I’d use to describe you Jamie, words and fire.” She sniffed, drew the robe tighter across her body and took a deep breath. There was really only one question she had left to ask.

“My mother used to tell me that only a fool falls for a man who’s in love with another woman. How big of a fool have I been Jamie?”

His head still bent to the fire, Jamie was utterly still as if by a lack of motion he could erase her question from the air.

“She won’t ever leave him you know,” she said, voice without spite.

“Yes, I know,” Jamie said softly, adding peat to the fire now that it was well caught. “She gave me first option some time ago, I refused.”

Belinda sat up and leaned into the pool of light that was gathering and slowly spreading its way out across the floor. “You bloody fool, you threw her right into his arms didn’t you? And you’ve been trying to save her from the fallout ever since.”

She shook her head, voice weary, as though she no longer cared if he heard her words or not. “I knew that night of the dinner party, but I told myself you’d have to make a choice with the two of us at each other’s throats the way we were. And you did, you took her by the elbow like she was some truant child.”

“I thought it best to separate the two of you,” Jamie said quietly, knowing the politics of that night were far, far beyond mattering.

“Yes, but you went from the room with her Jamie, you enquired after my well-being like a good host would and then you took her with you. But then you never really leave her, do you? How long Jamie? How long have you loved her?”

“Since she was eleven years old,” he said face turned from her, the silhouette of his profile set like a salt pillar.

“In other words, and to quote a man we’re both fairly well acquainted with,” Belinda said viciously ‘Forever,’ the word ground itself painfully past her throat as the quotation in its entirety came back to her, “and lifetimes before.”

“There are nights,” Jamie said very quietly, “when that has certainly seemed the case.”

Last edited by author: Thu October 04, 2007 11:11:48   Edited 1 time.

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