20. Fia #3
I slip into the next room, my heels clacking on the stone as I wander through the exhibition room. This room is cooler, more airy. The distant sound of rain hitting the roof unravels some of the tension, making breathing possible again.
I circle around the room, passing artifacts and paintings, all of which are on sale. Each price tag has a six-figure number written on it, some already sold.
I stare at one painting in particular, depicting a woman asleep in bed wearing white, entangled by red sheets.
A devil sits on top of her, his shadow projecting out into the room.
From first glance, the shadow looks entirely different, illustrating the side profile of an attractive man, his jaw in the right place, his nose strong, his eyes deep set.
But upon closer inspection, the shadow and the devil bear resemblance. Light, and the direction in which it is placed, alters the way we see things.
I glance at the description card, reading the text when voices echo through the stone, diverting my attention.
“...completely obsessed with his wife.”
“I know,” says the friend, sounding pained. “Life isn’t fair.”
“You sound jealous,” observes the other woman, causing me to turn sideways, watching them from across the exhibition room.
“Emil is quite possibly the most attractive man to have ever walked this earth.”
“Maybe so,” says the first friend. “But the weird obsession he has with his wife is borderline creepy. This is the first time we’re seeing them together in months, and I see them glued together like conjoined twins, isolating themselves from the rest of the function. The poor girl looks scared.”
I frown, returning to the oil painting, staring hard at the woman asleep in bed. Is she even asleep, or is she pretending to be?
My heels scrape against the stone as I make my way toward the exit.
“Ah, shit,” says one of the girls to the other. “You think she heard all of that?”
“Sound travels further than you think,” I say in passing, winking at the women. “I should get back to my husband and let you unpack that incestual, conjured twins analogy.”
“That wasn’t?—”
“Whatever keeps the jealousy at bay,” I say, heading back into the function room to see Emil shaking hands with men in suits.
He wears the same thing as the other men here, dressed in a three-piece suit, black and white like a zebra, and yet he stands right out of the crowd. You can train religiously in the gym, lift the heaviest dumbbells, eat protein for the rest of your life, and still look average next to Emil.
He moves through the crowd with ease, commanding respect, but nobody knows the truth.
Being his wife, knowing his flaws, makes me awfully smug.
Suddenly, I’m walking through the function wearing my wedding ring with pride, because I finally feel chosen.
I’m finally part of something, as opposed to watching from the sidelines, seeing those around me happy but never experiencing it for myself.
“Hello stranger,” says a dark voice behind me, instantly raising the hairs on my arm. “Care for a dance?” Emil skims my waist, swizzling me around straight into his arms.
I fall into his chest, his controlled heartbeat drowning out all over sounds for a blissful few minutes.
We stand under the chandelier, gold light spilling around him. He entwines our hands, staring deep into my eyes with a hungry possessiveness that ignites a fire in my core, causing my clit to tingle.
“Where did you go?”
“For some air.”
“Did you ask permission?” he says, arching a dark brow.
My breath catches, desire and fear merging into one as we move away from the chandelier, shadows passing across his face.
“Step forward with your left foot, lead with the heel, then push back onto the ball of your foot,” he guides, swaying to the rhythm. “You got this.”
After repeating the pattern twice, my body takes the lead, feet dancing in time to the waltz.
I gasp, catching Emil looking at me, a smirk stretching across his face.
“Your body never forgets.”
Fog clears from my head the more times I step, transforming me back to a memory. I look down at the floor, grounding my feet in this reality, but the color of my skirt changes.
I’m wearing white, dancing on grass, not stone, surrounded by trees instead of walls.
I look up at Emil, gasping, the shadows completely hijacking his face.
The sun disappears, leaving us in a strange purgatory period between day and night.
Emil keeps holding me, encouraging me to dance.
His face is hidden in the dark, but I sense him watching me, my skin burning up.
I should be terrified. I’m far away from the city, surrounded by pine. Nothing is getting past those trees, not even my screams…
And yet I feel safe in the wrong hands, learning dance moves as the night closes in.
Fog drifts through my head, encouraging me to return to reality. Emil is the first person to welcome me back, his brow hard as he reads my face like a complicated painting.
“Another memory?”
“Yeah,” I say absent-mindedly. “We were dancing.”
I glance at the floor, my yellow skirts swishing on the stone floor. A hole drills itself into my heart as I come around from that flashback. This one feels different from the rest, like I’m grieving a relationship I can’t even fully remember.