The Fall

Mr TA

CLAIRE POV

The door was locked, then unlocked. Then a deep voice rang from the barrel of a great expanse of chest as it barged into the apartment. It was attached to a crisp white shirt, and tailored dress pants that fit the shape of a body builders physique to perfection. Shaggy blonde hair was combed back from his chiseled face, but lemon yellow suspenders set the dashing ensemble off on misguided tangent.

"Sally Jackson!" The booming voice demanded. The recently loosened knot in my gut redoubled itself and tightened as I recognised the voice of Mr TA. In person there was a whiny ring around the way he enunciated his vowels. "I have figured it out. Your call this afternoon was a test to my intellectual capacity to figure you out." Mr TA strode straight through her apartment to the open window opposite the door, leaning on the edge and breathing the night air deeply.

Not bothering to glance at the company gathered in the small space.

The number and size of ego's filling the little space was suffocating.

"Which I have." Continued Mr TA. Still facing the wrong direction. "In all of my days, in all of the ways I have conducted relationships, you have captured more of me than any other. Sally Jackson you are an exotic treasure that lies unparalleled in a trough of smuck. Speaking of which, if you don't lock your door anyone could just walk in." He threw his arm out the window, indicating to the trough of which he spoke. I remembered the comparison Sally had made of him to a particular barnyard creature earlier this afternoon, and saw the resemblance in such a vivid picture that I could not restrain a merry laugh from the swirling depths of my nervousness.

"Ahh you laugh, but I know that you are as aware of your value as I am of mine." He practically sang out the window, mistaking my laugh for Sally's.

This entire episode was ridiculous on a number of levels, because; One - His statements were racist in a way privileged white men will never understand; Two - He had been the one to break in. and; Three; because her laugh was a deep rolling wave that caught you up and threw out every emotion that would get in the way of you joining in. Mine was a lighter tinkling that emulated the unbridled glee of a five year old encountering a new flavor of ice cream. Both were certainly enticing in their own way, but they were unmistakably unique.

Mr TA had never actually heard her laugh.

"He has a key?!" Diego hissed under his breath. Mr TA was too wrapped up in his own pontificating to register the voice of a man in the room.

"Not through any action of mine." She growled back and began to stalk towards the shape in the window. Diego picked her up and placed her out of harm's way.

"Mi Cielo. If we promise not to kill him, can we please enlighten him as to the sincerity of your rejection." Diego all but begged as Mr TA continued out the window.

"Sally Jackson. I have weathered the trials of your rejections. I have assumed unsolicited, romantic gestures the likes of which Hollywood would be proud to incorporate into fairytales. I have come to claim my reward." With this he swirled around and reached for someone behind him. Expecting Sally to have been drawn to his animal magnetism during the tirade. She wasn't, she was restraining Diego.

The scene presented to Mr TA threw the postulating figure off on two different levels. One was quite literal, he stumbled at the lack of a woman throwing herself into his arms. The second was figuratively, and his chiseled face and square jaw hung open in an unflattering gape.

Diego's gape this afternoon had been far superior. So had the ensuing reaction.

An unflattering shade of vermillion crept up the muscled chords of his neck as he took in Sally's attire.