Mortal Desire

by Alexander Bryn

cherish and adore forever, ‘till death do us part.

  All of my love forever,

  Liam

  She looked up at me with tears in her eyes, rose from her seat, walked around the table and sat on my lap, straddling me. She kissed me with such tenderness that I thought I was going to self -combust there and then.

  ‘Liam O’Connell, you are the man of my dreams, except, I could never have dreamed up someone as beautiful as you,’ she whispered against my lips while I floated on my high from her proximity, her kiss, and her position on top of me.

  She ran her fingers along my jaw line before she stood and returned to her seat.

  I no longer had an appetite from my food, only Sarah.

  Patience … patience …

  We danced again before we shared our dessert of crepes flamed in Grand Marnier, orange zest and vanilla ice-cream between us. Then I whisked her off in a cab back to our ancient oak tree, adorned with a thousand fairy lights. I had a plan.

  I stood under the treasured tree beside the love of my life, and looked sky bound as the magic of the old oak tree enchanted us.

  Then I lowered myself onto one knee in front of her, and took her hand in mine.

  ‘I love you Sarah—so deeply, truly, madly. Be mine and only mine. Marry me?’ I asked her again, this time holding open a box that housed an exquisite diamond engagement ring.

  She sucked in a breath at the sight of the ring that I had chosen for her, and moved her lips to mine.

  ‘Yes Liam ... yes. The answer will always be yes.’

  I pushed the engagement ring onto her finger and kissed it gently.

  She moved her lips back to mine then. I moaned and ran my hands over her body, exploring and falling deeper into my lust for her. I trailed my fingers up her legs and found that she was wearing stockings.

  I moaned as I pressed myself against her, and then stepped back from her, breathless.

  ‘Sarah what are you doing to me?’ I whispered to her, shocked by my raw carnality towards her.

  She hugged me, and wrapped her arms around my neck as I closed my eyes.

  ‘Liam … I want you,’ she whispered into my ear, weakening me again.

  ‘I know ... and I want you ... let’s go,’ I said in an urgent tone. I lead her across the park grounds in haste to catch a cab.

  She climbed into the cab and I leaned in and gave her a chaste kiss. She looked up at me and frowned. I shook my head in apology. ‘Not yet,’ I whispered, closed the door, and watched as she was taken away from me and my desires of the flesh.

  I could not sleep while powerful, raw, deep yearnings for Sarah continued to run through my mortal body. My desires of intimacy were so strong that I it took over every thought in my mind.

  ‘Il coraggio, la temperanza, la saggezza, la giustizia, la pazienza,courage, temperance, wisdom, justice, patience,’ I whispered to myself, searching for some kind of comfort.

  I repeated it over and over, in a bid to ignore the sensations engulfing my human body.

  So difficult to shut out ...

  CHAPTER TWO

  The reality of day hit me like a blast of freezing water. I took a cold shower and tried to focus on other things than Sarah. I needed to rid my body of desire for her. It still saturated my body like liquor, intoxicating me with love. Lust. Or both.

  I grabbed an espresso coffee to go on my brisk walk to work to shock me into alertness. There were some things that needed to come to an end today, to allow for beginnings.

  My immortal walk upon the Earth had ended, and the beginning of my mortal walk was just about to sky-rocket me to places that I have never been to before, emotionally, and physically.

  I donned my Elevator Operator uniform for the last time as a single mortal man, inserted the honey-brown eye contact lenses that irritated the living daylights out of me, and slipped on my white gloves, then walked the marble floor in long strides in my polished black work shoes to Elevator Thirteen. I entered it, checked it over and prepared it a rose scent, polishing walls, buttons and railings ready for the day.

  I stood straight and tall outside my elevator as I had been trained to do, and looked about at the nothing more than an ordinary day.

  At 10am, the elevator whisked down to the ground floor from the viewing deck on the thirty-ninth floor, after off loading a group of happy tourists.

  She sat on the white leather sofa alone, presumably waiting for someone. She fidgeted nervously knotting her fingers together in her lap. She looked this way and that, her red hair falling over her shoulder. Then our eyes locked. Green eyes to honey-brown, lost together.

  She caught her breath and stood. Her floral dress swished as she walked in her high heels towards me.

  She entered Elevator Thirteen, and stood in the middle of the elevator car. The doors closed.

  ‘Miss Flynn, how can I be of service to you?’ I asked her in my most efficient and polite elevator voice, with a coy smile reserved just for her.

  ‘Mr. O’Connell, I would like to go to floor thirteen please,’ she answered.

  I stiffened when I heard her say the number thirteen. This could not be true.

  Nobody asks to go to floor thirteen unless …

  I turned and looked at her, and held my breath. Adrenalin surged through my body.

  ‘Floor thirty please Mr. O’Connell,’ she said a little louder, then leaned over and pushed the button herself. She brushed her hand against mine and looked seductively into my eyes.

  I breathed out in relief, but rattled by the shock of thinking that she had said “thirteen”.

  Sarah shuffled from one foot to the other, looked down at the elevator floor and then looked at me before she spoke in a quiet voice.

  ‘Henry, I cannot marry you,’ she started. Tears built in her eyes. ‘I cannot marry you,’ she repeated again.

  Pain seared through my chest. I grabbed her hands in mine in panic, and started to shake my head in denial. My heart thumped against my breast bone.

  ‘Sarah …’ I whispered. Pain laced my voice in disbelief in the words that I had just heard.

  The doors opened at the thirtieth floor, and she stepped out and disappeared.

  The doors closed. I fell to my knees in the elevator. I had been struck by the lightning of her words. They flowed from her beautiful mouth and pierced my heart.

  I sat back in the corner of the elevator car, closed my eyes and let my tears fall. I had been such a fool asking her to marry me so quickly. I truly had believed in the red thread. I truly believed that Sarah held the end of my red thread.

  I brushed the tears away from my face, stood and breathed in deeply. I had to get on with my job.

  I released the door seal and the doors opened. Sarah stood, waiting on the thirtieth floor.

  I did not speak to her as she entered. I could not let my devastated emotions be released. I did not want her pity.

  She was my only client.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Ground floor?’ I asked. I could not look at her while my heart was shattering into a thousand pieces.

  She leaned over and pressed the button to the ground floor. As we descended to the fifteenth floor, she leaned forward again and stopped the motion of the elevator pod.

  ‘Liam, asked me to marry him again. And he gave me this.’ She handed me the golden invitation that I handed her last night.

  I looked at it and looked up at her, confused.

  ‘He also gave me this beautiful engagement ring that took my breath away. My heart only belongs to him, and it always will. I cannot marry you in the elevator with the elevator music. I’m sorry Henry,’ she said in a quiet voice, her face etched.

  I leaned against the elevator wall as I felt the blood draining from my face.

  She sucked in an awkward breath of air and stood in front of me with her hands on the sides of my face. ‘Look at me Liam.’ She looked into my eyes with sorrow. She kissed me then.

  I rested my forehead against hers with my eyes shut.

  ‘I
’m so sorry Liam. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to tell Henry how deeply in love with Liam I am,’ she whispered to me.

  I steadied myself against the wall of the elevator while my emotions roller-coastered the highs and lows. I looked at her with a pained expression on my face. ‘But Sarah, where you are concerned, I am he and he is me. And we will protect you from all of the evil that this world has to dish out. We are one and the same. Henry loves you as desperately as I do,’ I said, choking on my words while tears stung my eyes.

  She brought her lips to mine, hesitating before she kissed me. Our kiss became a frenzy of intense passion. I pulled away from her before I reached the point of no return. ‘Sarah, I have to get this elevator moving again,’ I said in a husky voice, re-engaging the descent of the elevator car. ‘I love you,’ I whispered to her before she stepped out of the elevator.

  ‘Et Je t’aime,’ she whispered back to me.

  The elevator doors closed and I was parted from her.

  The hours passed slowly in their ordinariness on this particular day of extraordinariness.

  That is what is would become at least.

  My meeting was scheduled with Mr. Bellini for 13:13 on the thirteenth day from our original meeting. Tomorrow would be the day, but I had planned to visit him a day early.

  At 1pm, the elevator rose to the thirtieth floor, and a hoard of women entered, bright and cheery, chatting like a bunch of clucky hens. They all exited on the ground floor except for one.

  Sarah was hidden amongst them.

  ‘Miss Flynn, such a pleasure to see you again. Are you disembarking here on the ground floor as well?’ I asked her, expecting her to be finishing up for the day.

  ‘I will, but I have one more meeting, and then I can go and indulge in my preparations for tomorrow,’ she answered with a smile.

  I nodded my head towards her, and shared my crooked smile with her, thinking of our exchange of hearts, minds and love tomorrow. ‘Which floor then Miss Flynn?’ I asked her, officially holding my fingers up to press a button.

  She looked into my eyes before she answered. ‘The thirteenth floor please, Henry,’ she said under her breath. She held her eyes in mine. A power play.

  I dropped my hand down to my side. ‘Why are you going to the thirteenth floor may I ask?’ Worry was taking hold of me.

  ‘I have an appointment with a Mr. Bellini, at 1:13pm. His secretary contacted me and said that he wished to meet me at that time. I thought that it was a peculiar time to request,’ she answered.

  1:13pm is 13:13…

  ‘You can’t go there Sarah,’ I said under my breath, trying to keep my aggression contained in its box.

  ‘I do need to go to the thirteenth floor Henry. He said that he had a special job for me to do for him,’ Sarah answered in an assertive voice.

  ‘NO! I forbid you to go there!’ I said, with force in my voice this time.

  ‘Henry. Let’s get this straight. I am an independent woman. I make my own choices. You may advise me, but never forbid me. You do not own me!’

  I was fuming. I clenched my teeth together before I spoke. ‘Very well then, I advise you not to attend the meeting with Mr. Bellini,’ I said, restraining the aggression inside of me.

  ‘Thank-you for your advice, nevertheless, I choose to go to floor thirteen.’ She stared into my eyes and squinted as if apologizing for her choice.

  Anger rose inside of me. Anger at Mr. Bellini for involving the woman that I loved. He knew exactly what he was doing by implicating Sarah Flynn in his silly little charade.

  A great sense of foreboding entered me. My world was about to come crashing down. I hesitated before I pressed the thirteenth floor button of the elevator, sealing our fate.

  We stood in silence while the elevator ascended. My heart ached.

  I knocked on Mr. Bellini’s office door at 13:13pm precisely, with Sarah by my side.

  ‘Enter,’ he called, with an unusual brightness in his voice. As we met eye to eye, he started to smirk at me. ‘Well, well Mr. O’Connell. You have attended on the twelfth day instead of the thirteenth. And I see that you have brought your pretty little side kick,’ he commented chuckling out loud.

  Sarah’s fingers tightened around mine and her body stiffened beside me.

  ‘Mr. Bellini, I hand in my resignation as of now. I have completed all activities as assigned to me. Mr. Milani has been exceptionally pleased with my deliveries,’ I said in a most formal voice to him as I placed the envelope of resignation into his hands.

  He poured himself a drink and gulped it down.

  ‘Mr. O’Connell ... Mr. ... O’Connell. Please sit in the black chair,’ he said in a polite voice that repelled every cell in my body.

  ‘No thank-you, sir. Miss Flynn and I will be leaving now. So I bid you farewell,’ I said, and turned with Sarah to exit his office.

  ‘Sarah, are you aware that Mr. O’Connell here, is an immortal?’ he called out a little louder than necessary.

  She turned at once and faced him with a confused expression on her face before she looked at me.

  ‘Open your uniform Mr. O’Connell, and show Sarah Flynn your scar of immortality.’

  I looked at Sarah and shook my head at her.

  Mr. Bellini charged at me and pulled on my blazer until the brass buttons popped off.

  I stared at Mr. Bellini with no emotion.

  ‘Miss Flynn, open his uniform. He bares an immortal symbol on his left pectoral muscle. You will see it as plain as day!’ he commanded her.

  I continued to stare at Mr. Bellini while Sarah reluctantly pushed my blazer to the side.

  There was no immortal scar.

  Mr. Bellini’s eyes widened when he looked at my blemish free left pectoral muscle. Rage visibly filled his entire being. He picked up his whiskey, and slammed it down onto the desk, and splintered the glass into fragments.

  He lunged at me with a piece of broken glass in his hand. ‘YOU were the one that would solve all of our problems with the Life Eternal Scheme Mr. O’Connell. Mr. Milani has got the system set up now to receive you and extract your DNA, your brain cells, your stem cells, your memories. Your blood was what we needed to fuel ourselves to become immortal, like a god, and have supreme power Mr. O’Connell. YOU ... YOU ... YOU ... were the one! Albert knew about this, that is why I had him killed. I couldn’t let him get in the way of our plans.’ Mr. Bellini had become a raving psychotic lunatic.

  He held the shard of glass above my chest on the left side. He was sweating profusely, and his hand was shaking like he had drug withdrawal symptoms.

  I placed my hand to the side of his neck and concentrated a burst of neural energy into his trapezius neck bundle of nerves, overloading his nervous system, rendering him unconscious at once.

  He slumped over me like a sack of potatoes. I pushed him off and looked over at Sarah.

  She stood in a state of suspended animation, her eyes opened wide in shock, breathing at a shallow, rapid rate.

  I gripped Mr. Bellini by the lapels of his jacket, and proceeded to drag him along the floor of his office.

  ‘Is anyone outside Sarah?’ I asserted, hoping to snap her out of her shock with the sound of my voice.

  She looked out the door.

  ‘No. Is … is he dead?’ she asked, almost hysterical.

  ‘No—he is unconscious,’ I answered. ‘Open the door for me,’ I instructed.

  Sarah opened the door and I dragged Mr. Bellini’s dead weight along the floor to Mr. Milani’s office.

  ‘Knock on the door Sarah!’ She did so, surprising me with the urgency in her knock.

  ‘Enter,’ Mr. Milani said with a voice full of hope.

  Sarah opened the door while I dragged Mr. Bellini’s body into the office.

  ‘Close the door Sarah,’ I said, looking into her eyes to determine how she was coping with the series of events that had just unfolded before her.

  ‘Mr. O’Connell, this is most unexpected,’ Mr. Milani said, hesit
ating with his words. He stepped away from what he saw.

  ‘Mr. Bellini is ready for you Mr. Milani. He went into a catatonic state when I informed him that the blood of the immortal, Pedro, was all that you required for success for your own immortality. Before he lost consciousness, he wished to proceed with the implantation of the capsule that you have been researching and preparing for insertion under the skin,’ I said, trying to sound informed.

  ‘Very well Mr. O’Connell,’ Mr. Milani said, after he considered me for a short while.

  He looked at my chest searching for my immortal scar. ‘Where is your scar of immortality that we were told you had by a reliable source?’

  ‘Mistaken identity I believe Mr. Milani. As you see, I bear no scars on my body, except bruising inflicted by the blows of Evan,’ I explained.

  ‘Very well then, can I get you a tea or coffee Mr. O’Connell?’ he asked me as if I had just delivered an ordinary individual to him on an ordinary day.

  ‘Thank-you but no Mr. Milani, I must get back to work. But I will take up your offer of tea or coffee at another time,’ I replied, as was the standard answer to his question.

  I nodded my head to him like I had always done, then grabbed Sarah’s hand and left the office with her in haste, dragging her back to Elevator Thirteen. I closed the doors before anyone else could enter the elevator with us.

  On our descent to the ground floor, I stopped the elevator and pulled out my cell phone. I called the police via the direct link number that I had for emergencies as an Elevator Operator.

  While I was talking, Sarah fell against my body, and began sobbing. I wrapped my arm around her and held her to my bare chest. When I finished speaking to the police, I slid down the wall of the elevator with her until we were sitting on the floor together.

  I wrapped both of my arms around her and held her tightly.

  ‘I am sorry that you had to witness that bizarre event … I’m so sorry. But we are safe now, together, and that is all that matters. I have handed the matter to the police. It is done. It is finished,’ I whispered in her ear.

  ‘I was so scared Liam … I thought that you were going to die. I thought that Mr. Bellini was going to slash you and you would bleed to death, and then he would turn on me,’ Sarah said between sobs.