Lovers

People never seemed to notice the blemish that appeared high on her forehead, startling on her porcelain-smooth complexion. Even people who had known her for many years, in fact, were unaware of that scar. It helped immeasurably, needless to say, that she wore her hair with a side part, so that her long, straight hair hung looped over that side of her forehead. And it suited her, it certainly did. It enhanced the sultriness of her dark hair expressed against the fairness of her skin, her large hazel eyes with their oddly asymmetrical appeal, her large, expressive mouth. The shape of her face was different too, somewhat reminiscent of the rare result of a kind of oval perfection resulting from a cross-fertilization of South Asian- and Western-generated genes. Although this wasn’t really the case with her; she was pure Anglo, her forebears sturdily British Isles-originated.

People liked her. They liked her natural easiness, her lack of social pretension. With her wide circle of friends, everyone invited her out to spend time with them, for social occasions and just plain get-togethers, one on one, or with some of the crowd that made up their social compact. She was generous with her attention, fixing her gaze directly at the person to whom she was speaking. Age had not diminished one iota her grace, nor her calm, warm presence. What people appreciated most about her was her seemingly casual disregard of others’ fascination with her physical presence. She was just like them, unaffected and well-balanced.

Her on-again, off-again acting career superimposed on her more lucrative and certainly more frequent modelling gigs and television-ad appearances had people turning in the streets, not quite certain what was so familiar about that passing face; her ubiquitous appearances on the public stage, as it were, gifting her also with a eerily-familiar, quasi-celebrity appearance, one she dreaded and did her best to offset. She remained, whatever else she did to shield herself from public scrutiny born of curiosity, a fragile creature of uncertain emotional stability. The quiet panic attacks she experienced followed by black moods when she cloistered herself in her apartment until they eventually passed, were her little secret, not to be divulged to anyone.

And when they’d finally met again, there was no mistaking, even after all those past years, that his appeal for her had resisted the years. When she saw him as she entered the large reception room full of familiar and some unfamiliar faces, she quickly averted her eyes when she realized he was looking directly at her, as though anticipating her arrival. Because she looked elsewhere in that split second she did not witness the dark look that engulfed his face, obviously shocked to see her there. Why that should be was peculiar, since despite his long absence from the country he had been eager enough to link back up with people he had once known and shared certain social pleasures with. Those people, in fact, who had formed a firm compact of friends during their university years.

Little surprise, then, he thought to himself immediately after, that she would also be there. He hadn’t thought to ask… Now that he saw her, he cudgelled himself mentally for his lack of caution. Resigned himself to coming face to face with her. He would never forget the way she had once made him crawl in his fever for her. The heat of their shared passion had seared him, left him unable to form a trusting relationship with any other woman. It pained him to think of all of that. The lack of intimate companionship throughout all those years of living abroad. He had even, at times, encouraged people to believe that he was gay. He could do that, with no blow-back, in the more relaxed social atmosphere that prevailed there.

When their host made a great show about finally bringing them face to face, somehow it seemed to them both that the tumult in the room became hushed, as though all eyes had swivelled toward them, to observe their re-introduction to one another. That isn’t quite what happened, people were more discreet than that, those who knew their history, and most of them avoided looking directly at them, continued with their spirited conversations, on this, their regular annual get-together.

Most of them represented the original crowd of university students who had formed a fairly close bond. Year to year, the changes in marital status, re-marriage or alteration in ‘companions’ expressed a changing repertoire of the presence of others swelling their ranks. They’d all, over the past several decades, experienced their full measure of life’s opportunities and disappointments. Most of them had prospered, and their languid self-assurance spoke volumes about their place in the larger society.

He wasn’t the only one who had found the satisfaction of living abroad to their liking; only the one who’d chosen to be longer in deciding to return to the country of his birth. He tired, eventually, of being an expatriate, even though he enjoyed all the benefits of a foreigner perfectly adapted to his adopted country which had rewarded him handsomely with a prestigious position in an international bank. His old friends, acquaintances and intimates were eager to re-connect, pump him for not only personal information, but financial insider-stuff as well. And he was glad to accommodate with respect to the latter, formally withdrawn in responding to the former.

When they came face to face each made a distinct effort to appear cool, detached, in perfect control. There was no particular warmth expressed, as he held out his arms to take her hands in his, and press them. She leaned forward toward him, her face grazing his, as they shared a perfunctory shadow-kiss. He had murmured something as his face passed hers, but she hadn’t caught what he had said, if indeed he’d said anything. He still held her hands, seemed to not realize that, then looking from her face down to his extended hands encapsulating hers, loosened his grip, allowing her to reclaim what was hers.

"It's wonderful to see you", he said truthfully, hoping that he sounded casual enough.

"Great to see you too again", she responded carefully, well enough aware of that dreadful flutter in her chest.

"Sorry to hear about your failed marriage. You see, I have kept myself informed. I know you were married for almost twenty years. I know you've got two grown kids."

"That's all right" she said. " We had a good marriage, for as long as it lasted. We've remained friends. That's what's important."

"Yes, of course", he said quietly.

Two decades hadn’t, after all, made that much of a difference. He was still captivated by her presence, the ethereal beauty of her appearance gripping him as though he were in the presence of an other-worldly figure. One he’d wanted to possess, make his own. But she had been so profligate with her favours, so generous in her liking for so many other people, her attention to him was diluted to a degree he could never accept. It had grated on him, torn tiny ragged holes in his self-esteem, that while professing to love him, she would still insist it was her right - not a privilege that he could bestow upon her - to see whom she wished when the mood took her. He was driven mad with jealousy.

It wasn’t that their entire relationship was like that. They'd shared long periods when she seemed resigned to surrender her autonomy - that’s what she called it - to 'assuage his possessive constraints' upon her. She would do this, exhausted from those short, sharp and nasty periods when his barking orders so completely enervated her normally ebullient personality, to bring a halt, however, temporary, to their temporarily dystopian existence.

When that happened, when she studied furiously, made no effort to see those of her friends he mistrusted, when she spent all of her time with him, they really did revel in the sublime comfort of mutual devotion, and really incredible sex. It was soothing to her soul, priceless beyond endurance, she thought, their relationship. And she was right; it was beyond endurance, since with the lapse of several months she began feeling restless, began to rage that she was being kept a prisoner, that he must regard her as a helpless dependent he forever hovered over, unwilling to trust her, to give her a little freedom of movement and relationships.

They had originally met at one of their shared classes, one he dropped after the first semester. They both lived in residence, but since they and a number of other students weren’t comfortable there, they had decided between them to rent a downtown house close to campus, and equitably share rent, an affordable luxury which gave them plenty of room and removed them from the closer confines and the kind of raucous environment that they weren’t interested in sharing.

Living together in close proximity brought all of the seven who ended up renting together even closer as a group of intimates. But it was the chemical reaction between they two that stood out, that everyone recognized and made amused allusions to, thrilling them both that others too had understood their need for each other’s proximity.

It wasn’t long before they took on another house-mate, since they found themselves with a spare bedroom, when they moved into the room he had originally had to himself. From there, it wasn’t long in the following year before they moved out to a place of their own, when they both earned a bit of a salary, she waiting at a nearby restaurant, he doing remedial math for high school kids.

They were doing all right. They both agreed that this was so. But he somehow continued to become irked with her. With her still-casual clinging to the notion that she was a free agent, despite their fixed status as a couple. It hardly seemed to matter how often she told him she loved him, he was never satisfied and he was never convinced. Any deviation, however minor from routine, would perturb him. If she arrived home late from her part-time employment or university, he would interrogate her. And she would become furious with him, berate him, warn him that she would take only so much, and no more. That he was not entitled, no one was, to treat another human being as a possession, a thing that could be controlled. He was breaking her spirit, sucking the life out of her, and she could not, despite her love for him, accept that.

Each time, witnessing her white-hot anger and her anguish, he would repent, apologize, say he hardly knew what had come over him. He knew better, he said, it was unfair, he just couldn’t control himself. But he would, he promised, he would.

“I couldn’t bear to lose you” he pleaded with her when she had first intimated that she would be prepared to break their relationship rather than continue to submit to his jealousy.

“You’re working toward that eventuality”, she responded grimly, in no mood at that juncture to help him to smooth things over.

“I know you’re angry with me. I know that. I’m kind of angry with myself. I know I’ve promised enough times that I would restrain these impulses” he said, his face a grey, worried colour.

“You’re right there, on all counts. You’ve promised time and again that you wouldn’t keep jumping on me, accusing me, giving me ultimatums. I’m not prepared to continue to overlook your failures to control yourself. You must know that now.”

“I do, yes I do. I know I’ve been unfair. I can’t for the life of me understand what comes over me. It’s not something I want to do. It’s as though I’m being controlled by some malign force.”

“You’re right again, Jeff. It is a malevolent thing, to continually insist on controlling someone else’s personality. That’s what you’re doing. You’re trying to drain me of those characteristics that express my unique personality, and replace them with those you find acceptable.”

“I’m not! Really I’m not. You’ve got to believe I love you, I don’t really want to change anything about you.”

“I’d like to believe it. How can I? How can I keep making excuses for you because I want to believe the things you say when you try to disown what you do to me?”

He stood there, mouth agape, not knowing this time how to respond, what to say. And then succumbing - despite desperately attempting to stifle the heat that suffused him - to that same chasm of vibrating, headache-inducing rage that initiated their interminable arguments revolving about her independence. Only this time the heat escalated to a kind of rage he’d never before experienced.

He found himself suddenly mentally detached, and physically manipulated. He felt, in fact, like a puppet that someone was experimenting with. With invisible strings manipulating his limbs. An artful ventriloquist was bellowing disgustingly hateful invective. Even as he felt helplessly detached, the thought flashed into his mind that what he was screaming at her would never be forgiven, never forgotten. He wanted to swallow his tongue, torque his body into helpless convulsions, so she might have pity on him and forgive him.

Instead, while still lashing her with those bellicose threats that poisoned the very air that surrounded them, he advanced toward her, and flung his open hand against her head, and she reeled backward, but caught herself from falling. Her shocked, frightened face, focused unbelievingly on his blistering anger seemed to motivate him further.

His second, backhand slam at her face succeeded in throwing her to the floor, body twisted sideways, face downturned, where her forehead hit the metal table lamp that her falling, twisted body had brought down.