The Theater
JO?O
O rnate gold molding adorned the balcony with its plush red velvet cushions, serving as an exquisite background to Gisele’s brilliance.
Tonight, elegance and style conspired, showcasing her in a bejeweled long-sleeved belted dress, ending in a cascade of fabric as midnight black faded to a cream tulle skirt.
So demure yet enticing, the V-neck revealed nothing besides the promise of a body made for late-night cuddles, her decadent curves the only pillow I’d ever need.
Not knowing what she’d wear, I still ended up complimenting her with my tan suit and black shirt.
Escorting her to our box, feeling how well she allowed me to guide her through the throng of people filled me with an indescribable sense of invincibility.
“I swear we live in the same city, but clearly not the same circles. How’d you hear about this?” Gisele asked after resting the event’s program in her lap.
“One of our members did the light design for the show. An all-Black performance ensemble-only opera… I thought that would be something you’d enjoy.”
Gisele’s unaffected shyness made her look down, but after a beat, she held my gaze with a pleased smile.
“You were right. I’ve never seen La Traviata , but I remember being fascinated with La Dame aux Camélias when I read it as a teenager.”
The lights dimmed and I reached across the seat, holding my palm up without hesitation. The soft skin of her hands grazed mine and her warm hold settled as the first notes of the opera began.
Gisele floated next to me, transported to the stage where the singers’ powerful voices filled the theater with the hungry longing of star-crossed lovers.
Her chest rose and fell in the shadows of our booth as Violetta wrote her farewell letter to Alfredo, trying to do the right thing.
Her faint sniffles burrowed inside of me, tears of passion, tears of being completely in the moment.
I envied her that. A bottomless yearning to make her focus on me took over, and I pressed her hand down, digging my fingers into her soft skin.
She gasped at the faint pressure, turning her tear-stricken face to me.
“Shhh, it’s okay.” I reached out in a trance, softness and wetness seeping through my fingers, the feel of her cheek bringing an explosion of heat in my stomach.
“I know…it’s just so beautiful and so sad,” she whispered back, matching the tenderness I gifted her by nestling her cheek in my palm. With deliberate softness, I glided my fingers toward her neck until my hand circled right under her gathered hair.
“Breathe, Gisele, it’s just fiction,” I reminded her.
“Is it, though? Isn’t this a story told a million times over?” she said sadly, then closed her eyes as the last notes of the song echoed through her.
“But it’s not yours,” I said with certainty.
“I always wondered what it would be to live so freely…with so much love inside, love to make you do wild things. Love for yourself so deep that you’d live your life authentically…”
“Look at me,” I urged her, a need to reassure her making me dizzy with untapped pleasure.
Her eyelashes fanned open immediately, and in the darkness of the theater, she let me see all that passion she had bottled inside of her, hidden beneath her demure clothes and prayers and Bible.
“It’s not yours. Your story’s not done. Do you understand?” My voice roughened and Gisele vibrated under my touch, under my veiled command.
“I do…I do, Jo?o. I understand.”
Jo?o, tome cuidado, essa mulher pode ser sua ruina.
There should be nothing sexy about the clean lines of a well-groomed jaw, but here I sat, mesmerized by Jo?o’s razor-sharp beard.
After a beautiful opera, he whisked me to this intimate Asian restaurant, another little gem I’d never seen before.
Nestled in a quiet neighborhood, I’d driven past this place several times, never realizing an eatery existed.
Candlelight illuminated our table, the dim amber hue giving the entire space an ethereal glow.
“I’m gonna start to think you a little ugly. Every place you’ve taken me is dark,” I chuckled.
“Gisele, you were attracted to me the moment you saw me under the harsh lights of the supermarket, stop playin’,” he said calmly. My cheeks warmed at the reminder of our first encounter.
“Goodness, you didn’t have to do me like that.”
“I’m just playin’ with you. Besides, I’m the one who should be worried; I’m going to start thinking I make you cry. This is the second time now.” The glint in his gaze made me think he might enjoy making me cry, and that intrigued me.
“The opera was gorgeous, I couldn’t help myself, and the supermarket? Well, you make it feel better, not worse.”
“So am I your band-aid making your boo-boo better?” he asked, his deep rumble keeping me in my Jo?o-induced trance.
What was it about this man that managed to make everything fade away, everything but him?
His presence felt like the headiest rush, like the spaced-out feeling after going into deep meditative space in the sanctum.
“I guess you do. A lot has happened in my life in the past year and…” He rested his hand palm up, and like a magnet calling to me, my palm rested on top of his.
“I was engaged with my church sweetheart, Jacob—I know, very biblical. I broke our engagement a year ago. I could tell Jacob was in love with someone else. He never did anything wrong. Never stepped out on me, but this other woman… He lit up when he was around her. He’d never done that for me, not even at the beginning of our relationship.
I thought I understood love; I thought I understood Jacob.
My best friend kept telling me that Jacob was with me because of duty, and I always ignored his comments.
Then this woman came, and suddenly Jacob was the most attentive man you’d ever met, but with her.
She was new to the church, a single mother, and had some difficulties in her earlier adulthood, some vices she worked to shake.
He works as a counselor in our church-funded rehab, and I guess it happened there.
“Once I understood he planned to stay with me regardless of his feelings, something broke. At first, I was going to stay with him. We made sense. We had built a life, we…we knew each other intimately. The only person to know me intimately… Minna—that’s the lady—and Jacob announced their engagement a few months ago.
I’ve had to witness their love and their togetherness, all while wondering why Jacob never opened up to me.
He hadn’t cheated, at least not physically, but he hurt me nonetheless.
And I couldn’t be myself in church anymore, surrounded by them living the life that was supposed to be mine.
The choir is gonna sing at their wedding and Jacob’s mom asked me to sing the solos…
because ‘Jacob just adores your voice and it would mean a lot to him.’”
Drained after my story, I gathered strength from Jo?o’s hold on my hand.
He’d listened patiently, his gaze gentle, until I got to the hard part.
Once he heard what Jacob’s mom asked for, his eyes tightened in the corners, but he stayed quiet, listening.
How wonderful to just be heard without anything but comfort on the other side.
“So you left the only place that felt like home?” he asked, and my eyes burned at the reminder.
“Yeah. The fact that everyone expected me to move forward and be the ‘better person’, to roll over and just take it and be part of their wedding, it was just…too much. I moved on from him, but the way everyone expected me to bend my boundaries… I’d never asked for much from him, Mom, no one.
Honestly, I felt betrayed, like I couldn’t even have support from those who saw me grow.
They all sided with Jacob and her, and I know it sounds uncharitable of me, but I was angry at everyone for pretending it was all okay. ”
“You’re carrying too much on your own. You need someone to hold some of that weight with you,” Jo?o said, our food forgotten in front of us as I felt him stripping me bare.
“I… it’s my burden to carry, not anyone else’s. Everyone has their own.”
“Mmm, so you’re a bit of a martyr too, huh?”
I scoffed, the word sticking in my throat like sour candy.
“Not at all; I’m aware of my blessings and I don’t mope. Now it’s time for me to find a new church I feel comfortable in and continue moving on.”
“And then what? Find that God-fearing man to lead you in a life with Christ?”
“Well, it’s always been my future. I…” I had no words. I understood he wasn’t a church-going person. I still felt so connected to him, but how would the future look with a man who didn’t have the type of community I craved?
“I get it. I’m glad you’re open-minded about us.
There are many couples of different faiths, or couples where one person goes to church and the other doesn’t,” he said, squeezing my hand.
I was supposed to be reassured, but instead, I felt hollow again.
My parents had been one of those couples, and in the end, their differences were too vast. My Dad was too reliant on his hard life, and my mother wasn’t willing to condemn her soul even for the man who owned her heart.
“There are…but enough about that. What about you, your lifestyle? Is that a deal-breaker?”