In Love with the Enemy.... Sort of

Chapter 1- Know Thy Enemy

Michael is laughing along with the rest of the people around him. Actually, scratch that. The rest of the people are laughing because he is laughing. He always had that ability to make people want to join into his happiness. To be near him is a privilege they are well aware of. When he laughs, people glow. When he is sad, the rest mourn. It is not just because he is rich. Everyone in the party is rich and no one is paid half the attention he is. No, it is not his wealth. It is his personality. It is the way he moves. People are drawn to him instinctively, as had I. I had been the unsuspecting moth to his entrapping flames. Once I was drawn in, it was almost impossible to escape.

A woman walks towards him and puts her arms around his waist. Michael looks down at her and smiles his blinding smile, surely charming the pants off of her. He draws her closer  and kisses her, and and that's when I notice for the first time that the woman is his wife, Susan.

She is stunning with rich auburn hair that reaches up to her shoulders. She is tall and her body screams perfection. But that woman must be the most innocent and naive woman I have ever met. She is loyal to a fault and loves her husband with all her heart. They are high school sweethearts.They had their first child, Tristan, when she was fifteen and he seventeen. Susan never went to college, she was busy at home with Tristan while Michael went to Duke on basketball scholarship. She gave up her scholarship to Harvard.

Michael and Susan take on the stage and people burst out in cheers. Michael takes the mic and holds Susan's hands. They have that effect on people. People love them as a couple. Maybe the idea that a couple could be together so long and still be in love gives them hope. Only if people knew that the kind of love Michael and Susan share is the most destructive kind that could ever exist, they'd lose all faith in love.

"Thank you everyone for coming tonight. We are truly delighted that you decided to come to our humble abode tonight and make our special day even more special." Everyone claps.

Humble abode, my ass. The house stank of money. He has so much money that people grew tired even talking of it. And the house very well reflects the position of its owner. Everywhere you look is glass. The man is in love with glass. Every item he buys has some kind of glass in it. Three sides of the room is made of glass. A huge sofa majestically stands at one corner; the arms have glass in it. The champagne tree he has built stands on a glass table. The wall which is not covered with glass has paintings by the most influential painters of the era and in the middle of it hangs a glass painting. Today the room is filled with people and still it is not cramped. I wonder if he is not scared of his precious glass breaking, but I know he isn't. He is not attached to any of the materials he possesses. If one breaks, he'd buy another.

He speaks some more, cracks a few more jokes and people laugh. I just sit there wondering if anyone else is as astounded as I am that he has built a stage in his own house.

"So coming to the main topic of the evening. As you very well know, today my wife and I are celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary." People clap once again and Susan practically glows at the approval people show when it comes to her relationship with the man standing next to her and my heart aches for her. I can't imagine the pain she'll go through if she ever finds out about the betrayal. But she has to.

And so the story starts.
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Michael and his family have been my obsession for almost four years now. I was nineteen, when he completely destroyed my life. He was thirty-eight at that time, nineteen years my senior. Double my age. Only ten years younger than my father. And still I... I am utterly repulsed every time I think of those days...