Mariah had taken Raul’s heart and wrapped it in a silken cage.
She was amazing. She could converse on any topic for hours and Raul had no problem telling his friends she was smarter than him, as though she had spent lifetimes reading encyclopedias.
Her singing voice was angelic, the only person he had ever met that would talk the karaoke host into turning the music off and letting her sing a song a Cappella, haunting songs that she said her grandma taught her. People in the bar sometimes openly wept.
Her skills in the kitchen-everything from scratch, hand-chopped, no gizmos or gadgets, just fresh, enticing, aromatic foods-were only surpassed by her lovemaking.
Raul hesitated to call them skills, she seemed just born to be a sexual being, Raul truly felt as though they were becoming one body, levitating over her satin sheets.
No matter how much they danced or drank or fucked, she was always awake first, preparing breakfast fit for a benevolent monarch, which Raul certainly was not.
They had bumped into each other, yes, quite literally, at the used book store, as he perused rare tomes he could never afford.
She wore a beautiful antique watch, even in the shower, and when he began to question her she pressed her finger to his lips and said in her amazingly seductive voice, “The watch is part of me,” and they made love in the shower as though they would never be intertwined again.
Mariah’s apartment was exquisite, but Raul began to feel as though he was neglecting his lizard.
She was not yet comfortable spending the night, she said, though they had been intimate in so many ways he could not imagine why.
He spent nights away from her, aching, tossing and turning as though she was a narcotic from which he was withdrawing. He could see dark circles begin to form under his eyes from lack of sleep…from lack of…Mariah.
His love noticed his malaise as well and acquiesced to his request to spend an evening at his place.
He had done his best to spruce his apartment up to a level that made Mariah feel more at ease.
She assured him that she was eager to meet his exotic pets and she was not bluffing, bringing Hewlett, his monitor lizard, out of his cage to play.
Soon, Hewlett was cavorting on the floor and Mariah and Raul were frolicking on the bed.
Mariah had only been in Raul’s apartment ten minutes and she was naked, save for the watch.
The watch that mesmerized the monitor lizard, and he struck, his swift claw snapping the clasp of Mariah’s watch, which tumbled to the floor. Her body shuddered. Raul thought it was the throes of passion.
Her hands dug into his back, more aggressively than she ever had.
Raul thrust, but Mariah’s dying hips had become liquid, She was melting, the bones of her fingers embedded deep in the shoulder blades of her now bereaved lover.
***
Timepiece photo by Jason Oliff on Unsplash
Top photo: Photo by Timur Romanov on Unsplash