Begin Again

by Sarah Sanders

  I want to wait for the sunset, but Betha hastens us.

  I am just a tad pouty about it and keep myself at a physical distance from her when we get back into the van.

  I’m a little irked, but mostly I am exaggerating my irritation so that she coaxes me, pacifies me, pampers me. I am being coquettish and I know it. I love her response to my coquetry. I love her cajoling me while I mock-play a diva. It is a game between us and I know she enjoys it as much as I do.

  Suddenly Betha asks the driver to stop. She gets off and comes around to my side of the car and opens the door. She takes my hand and helps me out…leads me to the edge of the road. She takes me in her arms and kisses me deeply. I immediately melt. Her kiss has me swooning. She ends the kiss and I fall into her, my face upturned, begging for more.

  “Open your eyes, princess,” she says softly.

  I open my eyes.

  She smiles at me and says, “Look at that,” indicating where I should look with a tilt of her head.

  I turn and am awestruck. There, in the centre of a tall, towering rock is a perfect heart. From our angle, the setting sun is just off the heart. A sliver of the sun crosses over into the heart sparking through the side. We can actually see the rays bursting through. It is hypnotic. Totally arresting. I draw in a deep breath and forget to breathe out. I stare and stare.

  “That’s natural,” Bethy tells me. “That heart has been formed by nature in the middle of the rock.”

  I look at her still a little wide-eyed at the unexpected beauty. It is impossible to believe that the perfect heart is not man-made. I mean it’s just too perfectly symmetrical to have been chance. Winds and erosion are entirely chance and this heart in the rock it too, too, too flawless.

  “Kat, just like the heart in the rock, Nature has carved you in me. You are as perfect as that heart there is. You’re my heart…my life,” she says.

  She lets go of me, takes half a step back and goes down on her knee. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod…is she going to propose? She is going to propose. My heart is thumping…fluttering…racing…stopping.

  She draws out a small velvet covered box from her pocket, “I don’t want to live without you…I don’t think I can. You are my past, my present…will you also be my future, princess? Will you marry me?”

  She opens the box and there is my ring. Set in platinum is a diamond the size of the Ritz. I am no expert but the carat number of this diamond is more than any I have possessed or even seen before. She has chosen the simple, classic, brilliant round cut – one of the most beautiful cuts to a diamond. It is timeless.

  I had always thought that I would say yes before she finishes the question. Instead, I am crying. My hands have flown to my mouth. There is a smile struggle to break out but right now, it is stymied. The tears won’t stop and I am unable to speak. A cascade of happy tears rendering me mute was not what I had anticipated. I try to nod, but am incapable of even that.

  Her lips twist in amusement, “Kitty Kat, you need to say something so that I can get up. Your answer will decide whether I am jumping you or jumping off this cliff,” she jokes.

  I finally find my voice, it comes out in a whisper, “Yes.” Then the shackles around my voice seem to fall away and…“Yesyesyesyes…Betha, yes,” I blubber.

  She holds out her hand for mine. I stretch my fingers into her hand. She kisses my ring finger and then she is slipping that perfect diamond ring on my finger. She kisses the ring, the back of my hand and the centre of my palm before getting up.

  I throw myself into her arms, going on my tiptoes and laying my arms around her shoulders. “Yesyesyesyesyes…” I cannot stop saying ‘yes’ and giggling and laughing.

  “So, I take it that you will marry me?” she says with wry irony.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think I rate a kiss?” she raises her eyebrows at me.

  Then I am crushing my mouth on hers and kissing her face off. And the sun slowly descends on the most perfect Valentine’s Day.

  We go back to the waiting van…and the driver, bless his romantic heart, has taken about two hundred photographs of the whole proposal with the Heart of Corsica in the background. He just saw what was happening and created a perfect frame and went at it. I cannot be more thrilled.

  What a day. A Valentine’s Day to end all Valentine’s days.

  I am engaged. To the most wonderful human being in the universe. To the woman who owns my heart. Who owns my soul. Who owns every millimetre of me. Who owns me in such a way that she has made me my own person.

  I am engaged.

  ******************************************

  State of Grace

  The Monday following the Valentine’s Day of the Ages is rather rushed for me. Work seems to have reproduced like rabbits in the two-and-a-half days that I was away. The number of items assigned to me via our centralised system seems to be running on and on and on.

  Imagine…that was only two-and-a-half days back. It feels like a different lifetime to me. My entire life has changed. I too have changed completely…but really, I need to get control of these wandering thoughts.

  My mind is constantly tripping and traipsing away down many Betha paths and it is all I can do to drag it back and try to focus. I hope she is having as much trouble as me…but she’ll definitely be having an easier time because staring into space is ‘ideating’ in her world and perfectly acceptable.

  I drag myself back to the excel sheet open on my screen. Just how has my to-do list gone from half a sheet to three sheets? Have I by chance dropped a month on the way and am already in the end of March? I check the date again – just to confirm – and no, it still is February 16th.

  The rock on my finger has not gone unnoticed. It is impossible not to notice it. The size and sparkle are enough to blind anyone. It could look like over-the-top kitschy bling except that it is real. Drawn by my ring, I have a steady stream of colleagues knocking my door with ‘Congratulations’. Each time I hear it, a smile the size of the sun takes over my face. I am surprised my face hasn’t yet split.

  Everyone who stops by clearly wants to chat. They didn’t know about my hush-hush engagement to David and as far as they know, this is the first time I have someone special in my life. But I am so busy that there is no time to chat.

  Folks are disappointed but try to be understanding. My distant friendliness over the years is paying rich dividends today. They all take my preoccupation with work in their stride. They get that I am swamped with work almost immediately and after the excited congrats, they don’t do a lot of hanging around with the usual follow-up questions. Instead there are a lot of ‘let’s catch up at the end of the day or week.’ I promise everyone that we’ll catch up soon and return to my work which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

  The non-stop interruptions only ensure that I am working in circles. Each time there is a break, however short, I need to go across at least five previous steps before I can move forward again. My to-do list just isn’t going down any. Not a single item has been ticked off.

  At around four in the afternoon, Theodore Franklin, the owner comes by. “I hear congratulations are in order,” he says standing in the door of my office.

  I look up from my computer. Ah…the leading light of the White Boys’ Club…the reason my promotion was stalled for three years.

  I lean back into my chair and the muscles in my shoulders scream. Betha, I am so going to need your magic fingers unknotting my shoulders tonight.

  “You could say that,” I smile back.

  His eyes flicker towards my left hand and his eyes widen perceptibly at the size of my engagement ring.

  Yeah, well…it is huge…but not as huge as the heart that has given it to me. Not as huge as the love that fills my life. Not as huge as the happiness that became mine two years back.

  I have a quick mental jog down memory lane and am drenched with emotion. Okay, I need to stop the rewind because then I am going to be drenched in other places lower down south and that
is something that can wait for a few more hours till I reach home.

  “Wow! That’s quite a rock you got there, Katrina…Congratulations,” his voice is just a bit too hearty to be real. He sounds jealous. Wait, what? He’s jealous of my ring? That can’t be right!

  Then it hits me. It is penis envy. A weird form of it, but it is penis envy that someone has given their girl a diamond like this… ring like this. What is he? A teen Mean Girl in high school whom the unpopular nerd has shown up?

  I almost wish I lived far enough to drive instead of walk to work. I wonder how much my Maserati and Lexus would burn him up. Maybe I should drive to work. “Thank you,” my smile erupts despite him.

  “So who is he?” he asks leaning against the jamb.

  “She,” I correct automatically. Do I imagine it or does his smile shrink? “She works at Translink in the research department. In fact, she heads her department,” I supply.

  “Well, congratulations again,” his voice is no longer hearty as he straightens. He casts a look at my ring again before he turns around, softly shuts my door and walks away.

  This whole exchange was strange. Particularly the abruptness of his departure. I’d think the least one would do was have a follow-up question about her name. He didn’t even ask her name. Who does that?

  I shrug it off and return to my work. Thinking about Franklin’s strangeness isn’t going to get things done.

  I hate carrying work home, but it looks like I am going to have to do just that this whole week to get caught up with the reproducing rabbits.

  I get back to my work. As the day continues, I start to think that Franklin let the two gems of information slip out into the office grapevine: the first that I am marrying a girl and the second that she heads the research department in Translink.

  By evening I am so inundated with visitors all agog that I have not done a whit of work since Franklin stopped by. I’m glad to get out of my office as soon as I can.

  During the earlier part of the day I was allowed to drop vague ‘Let’s catch-ups’ without any compunctions. But after Franklin fed the grapevine, the vague promises of a future meet-up and filling-in have translated into demands for a definite date and time and desperate requests to meet my fiancée.

  It could be curiosity about two women making a life together. It could be support for an alternative lifestyle. It could be friendliness flowing my way.

  It could be anything but I sense no negativity from any of my colleagues. I had never thought about it, but it is still a pleasant surprise. It is starting to look like I need to throw an engagement party soon.

  Which reminds me I need to announce my engagement to my widespread friends. Taylor needs to be told.

  Should I tell my parents? My brother? Hmmm, I wonder. I know I don’t want to but I also know that I will.

  This whole business of blood relatives is tiresome but unshakable. But I’ll take my time. I’ll eventually tell them, but not soon enough for them to be able to inject any hint of negativity into my perfect world and pure happiness.

  Living a day like today makes me I wonder at my blinkered world-view. Ever since Bethy came into my life my world has shrunk down so much that it doesn’t have space or care of ‘society’. We create our own society and it has only people who matter to us and to whom we matter. The larger, undefined phantom ‘society’ doesn’t exist for me.

  The idea that there will be co-workers and their reactions to my involvement with a girl had never crossed my mind. Neither had the idea of strangers and society with their judgements been a blip on my relationship radar. It never occurred to me that the world will be there with their prejudices and they may try to elbow themselves into my life. Into my relationship with Beth.

  Beth. Ms. Bethany Swift. There are times when I just like saying her name. Sometimes just in my mind. Sometimes aloud. I know that her name is my first conscious thought every single day.

  My finacée. I feel butterflies doing a delighted tango in my stomach at that phrase. At that description. My fiancée.

  As I say it to myself one more time, it hits me that my fiancée doesn’t have a ring yet. I need to get my fiancée a ring…and soon.

  ******

  Work is going to be here tomorrow also, getting my Bethy a ring is more important. I don’t carry work home.

  Instead I visit jewellers. All the major ones.

  Cartier and Harry Winston have rings that are almost, but not quite. I don’t want to settle for anything less than perfect.

  Tiffany has rings that are closer. But I am still not completely satisfied.

  The persistent salesgirl at Tiffany has figured out that I am serious and that cost doesn’t matter. She leads me into a cubicle for high-end privileged customers. She gets the store manager into the act and they dig into their vaults that have hidden treasures. Oh yes! These are much, much better.

  As the manager pulls out their deeply buried tricks, the girls brings in a thick catalogue with all their designs. They exhort me to look at the catalogue if nothing appeals and promise to make a new ring of any design that takes my fancy. The new ring would take at least four to six weeks.

  But I don’t want to wait four to six weeks.

  I promise them that I will go through the catalogue and get back to them and walk out disappointed.

  I wander along the street looking into windows. Like New York’s Museum Mile, we should name this boulevard Jeweller Mile because every store is a jewellery store.

  I don’t understand the economics and economies behind this but it feels weird that all stores selling the same product congregate together. Someone has done a study and proved that this sort of store-ghettoism is in fact beneficial for businesses and they sell more when they a lumped together rather than when they spread themselves out.

  That may be true but all I am seeing right now is the same ol’ same ol’.

  The ring Betha has given me is a straight-forward classic with simple lines, but I don’t see the same elegance of design or lines in any of the rings on display. She must have got mine made-to-order. There is no other way she could’ve got something so beautiful. I look at it and fall in love again.

  With a sigh I look up and find that I have stopped in front of an old jeweller. This is the oldest one in town going back to over a hundred years of doing business in the same spot. It is not a chain like the mega multinational jewellers I’ve just visited. They have just this one store.

  Maybe they’ll have something different. Maybe they’ll have the classics.

  I take it as a sign that I unconsciously stopped here and I go in.

  My eyes are drawn to a ring that is displayed like a museum piece. It stands on a pedestal of its own and is spot lit with a stark white beam.

  The ring takes my breath away.

  Three strands of metal are carefully carved and twisted into stylised Celtic knots to for the ring. There is a thick white strand of platinum with thinner, more delicate strands of green gold and purple gold. They come together in the centre to lovingly encase a heart cut diamond.

  The gracefulness of the green and purple gold strands make them a whisper along the main song of platinum.

  Together, the purpose of the three metals is to draw focus on the stone in the centre. It is unbelievable.

  The ring is like the most perfectly executed ballet frozen in priceless metal and stone.

  It is Betha’s ring.

  ******

  Ever since I had asked Betha how she like me…you know, how she liked me to groom myself so that she enjoys me the most, I have been looking for an answer.

  At that time she had said she liked me any and every way.

  So that meant that I needed to get an answer to my curiosity on my own.

  I really want to know because I fully intend keeping myself groomed just the way she likes me.

  Since I didn’t get an answer from her that day, I have been observing her when we are making love. Even when I am in the throes of passion and am los
ing my mind, there is some part of my brain that registers her behaviour.

  It is almost like I have a bot running in the background storing in signals that I can examine later.

  So the result of my careful research over months and months of data collection (okay, nerdspeak for sexy things may not be the norm…but it is research and it is data collection – no one can deny that…plus, I have been with Bethy long enough to have completely embraced geek lingo and I am actually unable to find any other words for this) is this: she really, really likes me anyhow. However, her reaction to different states of my grooming differs.

  When I go full Brazilian her face remains buried in me for the longest time. She eats me out like I am custard and my clit is the cherry on top of the custard. Her fingers and tongue wander towards my anus and this is the time we indulge in the most anal play. Her tongue swirls and rolls all over my cunt – inside and outside.