It was a totally new and different situation I found myself when I said it again. The first time, I had been in a tight spot I’d put myself in and I had said it as the last resort to get out. But this time was different, and this time I meant it. I was in bed next to Monica. I looked at her. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling.
That smile was what attracted me to her in the first place. Her dimpled round face was accentuated by that radiant smile no one else in the world could wear so beautifully. It was heavenly. Purely divine. And to not want to explore beyond that surface smile to see into what beauty lies beneath it was, to me, the greatest sin I could ever commit.
I looked closely at her now. The smile was radiant all right. But now, I could see something else in it. It was a flutter of uncertainty that creeped out when she was lost in thought.
“Penny for your thought?” I said lightly.
Her eyelids flutter. The smile wavered. But she remained as she was.
It was always hard to bring her back to reality when she got this way, but I knew it was for the best.
I looked down at her naked body. A birthmark right above her navel called to me. I’ve never been able to resist her beautiful body. It had always been an embodiment of her deep, beautiful but scarred mind to me. The scars, on her body too were a reflection of what she had gone through.
I bent and kissed the birthmark. and I felt her stomach muscle tighten.
I didn’t stop.
Slowly, she relaxed and toched my head lightly.
I looked up at her, her dimples deepened and she bit her lip.
My head swirled.
Monica. Oh, Monica.
She finally opened her eyes.
“You shouldn’t do that. You know what it does to me.” She said.
But you don’t know what you do to me, I thought.
“Penny for your thought?” I asked again.
She shrugged. “I was back in the past for a moment there.”
“Pleasant memories?”
She didn’t answer.
I touched a scar on her left arm. “What’s the story behind this?” I asked.
“I bit myself to stop from screaming.” She said humourlessly.
“Screaming?”
“My father was teaching me how it felt to be a woman.” She paused. “I was seven.”
She’d been scarred, I know. She was a survivor, I know. But she was strong, stronger than her past, and that was one of the truly amazing things about her.
She looked at me.
“I don’t deserve you,” she said. “If you knew what I had been through…I’m scarred up here beyond words.” she tapped her temple lightly.
I felt the sudden urge to hold her in a tight hug.
“There are no scars to your beautiful, Monica.” I said. She looked at me intently now, looking for a trace of lie…anything to show flattery, and I summoned from the depth of my soul all the power of expression I could find as I looked deeply into her eyes and said the words, “I love you.”
Somehow they felt inadequate and some I couldn’t find any more words to express myself. “By God, I love you.” I said and hoped she saw in my eyes that nothing else mattered in that moment to me more than her.
