Allure of Darkness

Satan sent her from the bowels of hell, I should have recognized old Jezebel

- Alice Cooper

“Darling, are you home?”

Alexander tore his gaze from the stack of papers on the table to glance at his wife, Angelica. Her eyes settled on his -beautiful, fragile. She truly was a magnificent sight to behold: scarlet lips, crystal white teeth. Thirty years old but still had the exuberance of youth. Strands of silver toppled out of her scalp, cascading down to her lower back against skin so perfect. It made a contrast that only served to make her appear more daunting.

“My love.”

The black dress she wore appeared even darker against her skin; delicate and silk. It clung to her undulant hips that invited a man’s caress, flowing down her legs, displaying her toned thighs.

“Where have you been?”

Angelica forced his back against the chair. In one fluid motion, she adapted so that she was astride him, her dress riding up her thighs ever so slightly. Alluringly, she blinked, allowing her eyelashes to flutter like the wings of a butterfly. “I had lunch with Sue-Ellen then we went for a shopping spree.”

Her smile was like a breath of spring. Yet in her eyes, you could see her for who she really was. They were windows into nothingness; cold and distant even when her smile was brighter than the sun.

If the devil was real, Alex told himself, then she was his masterpiece. She was just faultless in her bone structure, highly trained in deception and lies. With her looks, it was all too simple. At first sight, you would be drawn in. Nothing so pretty could possibly harm you, right?

“Dressed like that?”

“Elegance is the only beauty that never fades.”

He could read her faster than a tweet. The smile - uneasy - she was eager to please him. Alexander was trying to be indifferent. He knew after a few delicate touches of her warm lips, his body would start to do his bidding. She knew that too well. At that moment, her voice dropped and she inclined into his ear, her whisper purr-like. “I missed you.”

Encircling his arms around her waist, he stood and released her. “Liar, I can smell his perfume on you.”

“Alexander?”

“Don’t take me for a fool. I know you’re still sleeping with him.”

As if on a set of a movie, Angelica managed to produce tears instantly. “Sweetheart, why do you accuse me every time I step out of the house?”

So typical of her to play the victim. “Stop acting.”

“You’re being paranoid. I swear to you- I swear it on the grave of my parents. There’s no other man I adore as much as I adore you.”

Furiously scratching his head, Alexander asked, “Should we revisit the past?”

“We’ve talked about this, I made a mistake and owned up to it. I’ve not been in contact with Marcus since I ended the affair. What more do you want me to do to prove it to you?”

He encased both his hands around her elegant neck. “I've said this repeatedly, I want a divorce.”

“No!” She gasped, eyes wide. “I thought you were just trying to scare me.”

His eyes mirrored a frozen lake, eerie and full of repulsion. “Sign the divorce papers. Don’t push me to use methods we’ll both regret.”

“Don’t threaten me.”

“I wasted so much time trying to understand you.” He tightened his fingers. “Trying to fix the woman I married, to bring out any emotions but I was wrong. That woman doesn’t exist. You and I never had anything real.”

“Why do I get all the blame?” she questioned, bitterly. “For years of our marriage, you buried your head in your work with no regard for me. I yearned for you, begged for a little of your time, your attention, your advice, but what did you do? You shut me out because I wasn’t important.”

“Is that your excuse for sleeping with my best friend?”

“No, but when I needed your support and you couldn’t give it he did. For me, it was clear that your work was much more important than me. Marcus was there and I was weak.” The torrents of tears continued to cascade down her cheeks. Angelica took his face into the palm of her hands and searched his eyes. “You’re what I love more than anything in this world.”

“You think I’m unaware of the fact that I lay in a coma for months because you sent someone to kill me?”

“Really?” She blinked the tears. “How dare you still accuse me of something so vile?”

There was no change in his demeanor. Angelica searched for the man she had married, the man who worshiped the ground she walked on but he wasn’t there. Whoever stood before her was the thoughtless, tyrannical dictator he had become after waking up from a coma.

“Why are you punishing me for something I didn’t do?”

He grabbed her wrists and shoved her hands from his face, then whispered, “I don’t believe any word coming out of your mouth.”

Alex moved away and poured himself a glass of whiskey. “No matter what you say to me, I don’t care. I want a divorce. I don’t love you.”

“Shut up.”

“I don’t love you.”

“You’re lying.”

He walked back to her. “I. DON’T. LOVE. YOU.”

She covered her ears and raised her voice. “Shut up.”

He stopped just inches away. “I don’t love you and I won’t stop until it sinks into your thick head. I don’t love you. I’ll repeat it a thousand times until you get it, I never loved you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“The woman I loved was an illusion. I put you on a pedestal and worshiped you like you were my religion, but you put a bullet in my chest. You make my soul sick.”

Angelica stepped closer. “You love me.”

“Sign those divorce papers.”

“I will not.” She walked without shame or false modesty, knowing she was beautiful in his eyes. Rubbing her hands on his chest, she intertwined them behind his neck. Her charm hadn’t been working on him anymore. Apparently, she had to nearly murder to arouse him enough to attack her. “You’re the air I breathe and I won’t lose you.”

Her lips touched his brain as they touched his lips. She could feel him quiver. Pulling away, she searched his eyes. Angelica then lowered her lashes until they almost cuddled her cheeks, looking at his lips, and slowly raised them again, like a theater curtain. “I dream of the day you’ll touch me like you used to.”

His breathing quickened. “That’s not happening.”

She held him closer, incautious. “ While I live, I’ll love you. While I breathe, I’ll love you. I’m for you and you’re for me. I’ll never lose heart, never.”

Alex’s mouth hovered over hers. His eyes were very alert now, and his gaze was boring into her. She placed her lips next to his ear. “Kiss me with that attitude like you do when your mouth yells it despises me but your tongue screams it can’t wait for me.”

Unraveling Alexander was Angelica’s beloved hobby. He was a beautiful man. His hazelnut eyes were what captured her attention when they first met. They’re wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire. The perfect balance of danger and charm, at the same time captivating and inaccessible, utterly attractive in an enticing and forbidden way.

He gripped her waist and crushed her into his body. Swiftly, her back was on the chair and Alexander was on top of her, fighting against his very being. Her heart pounded, chest rising and falling in anticipation. His mouth came down on hers and that was it. All the self-control he’d exerted over the past months went, like water crashing through a broken dam.

He kissed her. It was the kind of kiss that inspired stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.

Alexander clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, trying to tell her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things he could never say out loud. They had nothing to do with love and everything to do with the conflict in him; desire and hatred.

Alexander pulled down the zipper that held her dress while she unbuttoned his dress shirt. She gave a little gasp when he tore his mouth from her and buried his face into her breasts. With both his arms grabbing her waist, his sinful mouth moved from her breasts to her neck and then back to her mouth.

“I love you,” she moaned against his mouth. “Kiss me until I forget how terrified I'm of everything wrong with our lives.”

There was nothing sweet or gentle in their kiss; it was filled with sorrow and desperation, of the bitter knowledge that things were not okay. For love, at first sight, was just that and passion wasn’t enough to fuel their marriage. She desired him. Angelica felt as if she was straddling the fence between life and death; her desire was half of life; his indifference was half of death.

Abruptly, Alexander turned them around so her back was on the sofa. He pulled away from Angelica, unlocking her hands from around his neck and stepping back. She stared at him. Her eyes were wide. Her lips were parted, her hands still open.

Devoid of emotion, he said, “I don’t love you anymore.”

“But you desire me.”

“The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man’s slavery.” He reached for his shirt and put it back on. “Sign the divorce papers.”

She stood swiftly and reached for the glass of whiskey he had set aside earlier. Angelica threw it across the room in anger. It crashed into the wall and shattered into pieces. “Never.”

The laughter evaporated from his eyes. They now had a deadness, a stillness. He stalked closer his fist clenching. She backed away, afraid, not of his curling fists or the anger that radiated from his skin. Of the malice in his eyes. He leaned into her ear and said, “I’m going to make sure you do, my love.”

Spinning around, he shuffled out of their house.

Angelica marched into their bedroom and slammed the door. Like a crystal vase falling onto a marble floor, her last shred of normalcy shattered into a million pieces.

“Think, think, think...” She rapped her knuckles against her temples and paced around in desperation. “Think, you stupid girl.”

Sitting in her vanity chair, she stared at her reflection. Her eyes were wild with desire, her mouth swollen from his kisses. With the back of her hand, she casually wiped away the smudged lipstick to her cheeks then gazed at her ring. It was a three stone ring set in Platinum with an Emerald cut diamond. She caressed her cheeks with the rough edges and kissed it. “You’re never leaving me, Alexander. Over my dead body.”

***

I hope you’ve liked the first chapter. Feel free to let me know what’s intrigued you about it.

XoXo!

-AP