Mia Darien - Good Things

Amanda shifted on the couch, closing her eyes. There were birds as well as traffic outside the window. “I love what I do. I’ve become good enough at it that I can choose who I work with. I don’t accept couples who would marry out of convenience or money. My dad’s sister did the very best she could with me. I’ve always had a romantic nature. I was always… anxious to love someone. But I am happy with me. This isn’t some thing where I don’t love myself enough. I mean…”

She sighed. The therapist crossed his legs and coughed.

“Amanda… These sessions have to work for you. And I must tell you.” He cleared his throat. “You are a very beautiful, very successful woman. You would have no troubles finding a relationship. Tell me how you feel about love.”

Amanda opened her eyes and rocked her head from side to side. The skylight in the office made her feel exposed. She wished it was night. Sighing through her nose and splaying her fingers on the furniture’s cloth, she began again,

“I feel that love is taken for granted. That it deserves almost…worship in its own right. I mean, all the evil and all the violence in the world is a result of people who begin to value violence and bloodshed, who value money and power over the sheer, satisfying beauty of mutual love. I think it is a sin not to love.”

Her therapist was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Do you think that you sin? Or are blasphemous for not loving?”

“I…devote myself to making the days of others special. But I can’t get past the fact that I can’t…I haven’t managed to love anyone. Not the way I should. Not the way I was meant to. But I can’t force myself to accept the offers of someone just because. But at the same time…”

This was the worst moment. The awful moment when the tears burned her eyes and she fought for coherent thought.

I am a weak woman full of fantasies and notions that don’t fit in the real world. And I can’t handle it. I’m a dippy, needy cow. I want to be professional and strong. Not like…not like this. Not broken in a way I can’t describe.

But no therapist could get those words out of her.

She swallowed her tears and said in a trembling voice, “Look, for five years I just haven’t been right. I wish I’d known my mother. I wish my dad was still around. I want a husband and a family, but that just isn’t going to happen. Because I won’t accept just anyone. But I know I’ve got to move past it and accept that it might happen on its own. If I stop feeling like this.”

But it won’t. I know it won’t. Something is wrong. Something went wrong. But I don’t know what or who or where or why. And I can’t say that. It’s crazy.

“Amanda, I think our time is up now. I’ll see you next week.”

“Right.”

The ticking clock that had been in the background, unnoticed beside the birds and cars, had stopped.

Later, arriving back at Oxford Road Station where she could walk to her flat, she looked up at the still light sky, despite the fact that it was nine in the evening. The light irritated her. She longed for the oblivion of night.

With a cup of tea in hand, Amanda sat down and went through her meetings for next week. The things she would have to arrange for her clients. She’d have to visit St. Ann’s in town again.

Satisfied that all was in order, she took a sip of her hot drink.

I shouldn’t do this really. It’s like torture. But I can’t not think of him.

Amanda had a habit of cataloguing the specific details of her lover, even though there was never a full picture in her mind. Just flashes and sensations.

The exact way he would hold her hand. The pressure of his fingertips. The texture of his palm. The spot where his shoulder met his neck.

Their wedding day. Not a grand affair, but a simple one. Intimate and binding. That would have been her choice.

There were handsome men who pursued her. Men clever enough to see past her exterior. To see that she was a committing type. They pushed her. But no amount of looks or cleverness lured her beyond a certain point.

The feeling wasn’t there. They didn’t have his face. Their skin wasn’t the right temperature. The tenor of their voice wasn’t right. The rhythm of their breath was all wrong.

It was in this stream of thought that Amanda began to prepare for bed. By the time she got there, the sun had finally set.

“Thank goodness…” she said, slipping into her sheets and placing her hand over her mouth.

Amanda had begun to perspire in her sheets, turning her body in an attempt to get comfortable. She’d finally settled on her back, when a noise quickened her pulse.

There was the sound of fabric rustling. A smell of smoky incense. It made her think of exotic, older places. Hot earth and inky skies. For a moment, her bed was the warmest summery ground.

It was reminiscent of a summer holiday in Greece, where her auntie had taken her one year.

The warmth on her back was soothing. Drifting off, the sights and sounds outside and within her head began to blur.

Amanda turned her head and groaned. The heat of the ground materialized into a cloak. In her mind’s eye, blue-black cloth slid around her and held her still. Amanda opened her eyes.

Standing over her was a woman. The lady’s ebony hair blended with the midnight cloak that surrounded her.

“Well, well, well. No wonder I could feel your appreciation. It isn’t exactly worship, but I felt your admiration. Strong it was too. Sleep, dear one. And may the sweetest dreams comfort you.”

Then Amanda, immobile, watched the woman’s aquiline nose turn away. Her olive skin glowed, haloed by the moonlight outside the window. The lady addressed someone not in Amanda’s line of sight.

“Morpheus, leader of the Oneiroi, come. See what you can do here.”

A man appeared at the lady’s side. Young, with the swarthy handsome features of an Italian or Greek. The type popular with sunshine-starved British girls. Yet inside, Amanda began to panic. He looked down at her with interest.

What are they going to do to me? What’s this?

Fear welled up inside her, crowding her chest with paralyzing heaviness.

The midnight cloaked lady disappeared. Morpheus’ brows lowered over the black opal eyes continuing to study her. Waves of sedation washed over her. Her veins felt as though they were humming, buzzing with a substance other than blood. She was able see him, watch him.

I don’t know if I’m asleep or awake.

At this, the one called Morpheus’ mouth curved up like he’d heard her thought. His voice came through. Focused on her. Like a practiced hypnotist. Some sort of master of meditation.

Something way beyond any therapist she’d ever spoken to.

“You are, for the moment, awake. What a beauty you are. And you’ve lived here all your life. I wonder… where is your mother?”

The Oneiroi leader was in her head, gathering every scrap of emotion and thought, scrutinizing every memory . For a moment, it made her feel uncomfortably vulnerable. He spoke again.

“Ah, I see. Don’t worry. I can’t touch you, and I fear the repercussions if I play too much. But I can certainly show you things. Do you want to see?”

Amanda wasn’t sure if she did. At any rate, she could neither speak nor move.

“Of course you do. Watch me.”

And he began to change. His olive features shifted to a paler complexion. His hair was no longer black but a very short-cropped light brown. Yet even in the dark, she could see his natural colors were burned by a harsh sun. He was straight-backed, strong.

A soldier’s stance.

Only her eyes could move. In the moonlight, she saw where his shoulder met his neck. Her gaze looked to his palms. She knew their texture. The precise pressure of his touch. The scent of his skin. She knew those things, yet now could not sense them.