Open Invitation

CHAPTER 5

We rest quietly still wrapped around one another as we had been and remain that way it seems, all afternoon. Veronica, the name connected with the slumbering goddess, is asleep in my lap and I remain in a state of wakeful sleep.

My head spins as I run through the events in my head. Why had I been so befuddled? Why had my mind concocted things so half assed?

Perhaps I was a man who had a taste of Eden and feared that the fruit would dissolve in my belly, until it became a solid, ugly mass that stunk, stunk of reality. I looked down at Veronica and see her now as if she was some small child. She rests so peacefully that I don't dare move, not even to make myself more comfortable.

I heard wood slide against wood as a light penetrates the darkness. Footsteps follow soon after and I cast my eyes toward the visitor. It's Alex, at least the man I knew by that name, he crosses the floor and sets himself down in a large chair opposite our own seating, which squeaks subtly.

My mouth opened and before I know it I ask an inappropriate question that had bugged me all day. "Why do you let strange men like me sleep with your wife? If she was mine I would never let any other man put his hands on her." My words are full of malice, but somehow I never raise my voice above an appropriate level.

"She's your's now, isn't she?" Alex poses a question that had no sarcasm, but genuine inquiry.

"No she's your's," I return.

"Is she?" he deflects my assertion with a simple ponderance.

"Yes," I fire back, frustration building in my voice.

"What makes her mine?" Alex challenges with all sincerity.

"She's your wife," I throw back.

"And what does that mean?" Alex persists, seriously interested in what I had to say.

"It mean's that she's your's and your's alone," I push on, irritated that I had to explain things to a grown man.

"Oh, and what does that mean?" this time he doesn't allow me to respond, but carries on. "Does that mean I'm supposed to stand in the way of her happiness?"

I stop dead in my tracks. All my big important words flee from me and I find myself with nothing in my empty head.

"You attribute multiple sexual acts with multiple partners, to that of a whore," Alex reasons. "So I ask you, is she a whore?"

I stare down at her, this angel of mercy who had rescued me from my depression and showed me happiness in my neediest hour. I couldn't possibly reduce her to some painted jezebel flaunting herself to the most disgusting and depraved men you could ever find. I could not answer not to the positive nor to the negative, so I allow silence to be my response.

Alex observes me closely and see that I'm under conflict with myself. "You're willing to believe anything I would tell you about her at this point, aren't you?" he breaks through my fog of confusion and leaves me feeling more lost.

I silently reprimand myself for being so easily duped.

"The truth is I have no sad story as to why Veronica loves sexual promiscuity," Alex informs me. "She is the way she is. It is the best, all be it pathetic, explanation I can give. We married not because we loved each other, but because it was mutually beneficial to the both of us."

"Beneficial?!" I burst out, before adopting a quieter tone so as not to wake the woman sleeping on my lap. "Marriage is supposed to be..." I search for the right words.

"Supposed to be what?" Alex snips showing an emotion that he had so far restrained from view.

"You know, love," I choose my words, much the same as an adolescent who has only just grasped the concept of language.

"Love, and what do you consider love?" Alex speaks again, but I hear curiosity in his voice more so than any other sentiment.

"Love? There is nothing to consider it's just there." I hate talking about things I really know nothing about.

"So you believe it to be a power that exists by itself?" Alex further queries.

"I'm not sure what you mean," I wasn't sure if what I had just spoken was a question or a statement.

"You believe love to be some form of higher power that manifests itself to the worthy, do you not?" Alex probes at my thoughts.

I'm taken aback by the statement. The last twenty four hours I had been forced to think about a lot of little things I normally take for granted. Needless to say, I was a little off kilter. Was I now to lecture to a grown, married man about something he should already know?

"Love is whatever you choose it to be," I say with innocence.

"From what book did you pull that from?" Alex enquires of me.

"What do you mean?" I return, genuinely uncertain of what he was talking about.

"You can't mean to tell me that those are your words," Alex challenges.

"Why not?" I respond in a somewhat defensive fashion.

"Because, things that are pure rarely sound so eloquent," Alex points out. "In their basest definition, they are more often than not crude." He takes a moment to think before carrying on. "I'm going to guess that even though you are surrounded by such ideas, you yourself have never actually felt them."

I make to defend myself, but find myself settle. He's right. I really don't know. I can only surmise that it's the self defense mechanism kicking in. The one that will not allow us to show that we are ignorant of a subject, no matter how diverse.

We each just sit in complete silence while we survey the other, trying to read something in the others face. And I can't vouch for him, but I know I failed.