Everlasting (Complete)

Everlasting Loneliness

Opal Godsman had not led an easy life.

Her husband had long since divorced her and had remarried and she had no children, or family. Her career had long since faded, once she'd been a model but as with all celebrities her time had passed, there were no more job oppurtunites and the few friends she had made had slowly faded from existance.

At the age of sixty five she now lived entirely alone, she was retired yet it did not bring her any joy. She was a forgotten antique marred by age and loneliness, forgotten in a small cottage in the countryside...

She laid on her worn sofa shrouded in a faded red blanket and stared into the fire. It wasn't a particularly cold night but the lack of company made everything seem so much colder, she had discovered that the warmer her house was the less empty she felt and yet still she had not yet given up hope of one day having someone who truly cared about her.

Every day after she finished her daily sewing she would bake soft white loaves of bread, cinnamon infused buns, oatmeal biscuits and vanilla muffins. She longed for a visitor, a passing hiker or a kind postman. She would invite them in for a cup of tea and feed them her delectable food, but no-one ever came and the food would gradually stale until the next day when she would empty it into the dustbin and repeat the routine.

What must it be like to be truly loved? She pondered.

"What must it be like to be wanted, needed and desired?" She wondered aloud.

But as per usual there was no response and as per usual the tears slowly leaked out of the corners of her eyes and trickled down her pasty cheek and she was left feeling emptier than ever...

She closed her eyes in a desperate attempt to doze off and forget her woes even if it was only for a few hours. An icy draft encased her heart and she pulled her blanket tighter around herself, there was a strange crackling noise and she idly opened one eye, then the other until she saw something which she didn't dare to believe was possible...

There from her fireplace stood a man. A man with golden skin and smouldering chocolate eyes with hair as black as cinders...

He was etheral and beautiful, radiant and godlike and he spoke to her in husky tones telling her words that she longed to hear.

"For this night and this night only I am yours and yours alone..."

"Who are you?" asked Opal in wonder.

She should have been afraid, any other person would have been terrified and suspicious at having a strange male in their house but Opal welcomed the company.

He smiled revealing a perfect set of sparkling white teeth, "I have no name, for I am not a whom I'm a what. I am a Djinn, a fire demon," he explained.

Opal nodded slowly, for the first time in years her heart was pounding to a rhythm which it had almost forgotten, she did not scream or cry, she welcomed him with a smile and offered him half of the blanket and a muffin.

That night was one of the best nights of Opal's life, it was not one of the glamourous parties which she had attended in her former glory but it was something which she had desperately craved over the past years.

He held her and kissed her and spoke to her. He learned about her past of her former fame and glory. He caressed the wrinkling flesh on her arms which were becoming speckled with age spots yet he was not deterred...

For one night Opal was everything she wanted to be, she was needed, wanted and desired...

The clock struck eleven thirty and Opal closed her eyes in exhaustion, it had been a long time since she had broken free from her routine. Slowly in the arms of her majestic demon she slept her heart swollen with vitality.

She awoke the next morning and pressed her hands to her face, there were no chapped lips from kissing and her skin was still papery thin. She turned around and scanned the area but the Djinn from last night was nowhere to be seen. Panicked she checked the fire but it had long since died out, her night was over.

Shaking she wept into her fraying blanket and brushed her fingers over the area where he had sat.

The only thing left of her mysterious demon lover was a single scorch mark, a sign of his origin...