Her watch seemed peculiar. Red and gold: too loud for elegance yet irresistible too. Bella heard its deliberate, teasing ticking even though it appeared a very tiny and elegant gold watch, it behaved like a grandmother clock; chiming, tolling even hissing once or twice as a group of business men stumbled by carrying coffee.
A sudden hand flashed across the table. Friend or foe? The shock of cool slender fingers yet a firm pressure as they shook hands. The carriage woke up to watch.
Bella prepared to duel. Imagined sabres and velvet masks. Bone corsets, fine leather boots. An amber ring large enough to house a lock of hair. Fate plays with our promises; Bella stared at her opponent beneath her long black lashes, releasing her breath and letting the woman wait for their conversation to begin.
A musky, musty voice. Even hello sounded as if it had travelled a long, long way to reach her.
My name is Liberty for this moment at least. We can never be sure where we may find ourselves named in the next time.
Isabella. I prefer Bella.
You like your new name because it sounds out a release from the old. I liberate my listeners from their prison house words. From their small words that are far too tiny for their growing up. You like my watch don’t you/ well it is a watch with a special heart. Some hearts are here for a short while, they look after us only through one life time. Other hearts are stronger, more enduring, even when love proves difficult and disappointing. When you meet the deep, persistent heart then you hear its pulse even across the petty limits of convention.
She took off the watch, gently releasing the red and gold claps and handing it to Bella across the table. Look carefully Bella, notice how my watch marks out our time together. How warm this special time feels when you hold it in your hand. Notice the marks of my numerals. They decide time differently as you must know. Don’t you?
Bella concentrated on the number IX, placing her right middle finger over the gold letters.
You trust me. How brave. Concentrate on the figures the each alone, let them breathe up through your fingers, gradually feeling them less alone, less separate and now merging together. Nine the perfect number the square of three. The trinity times by its perfect self.
You are a conductor of a magical heat, an electricity of the mind, feel time’s unwinding, reconnect with someone you should have met, may have met and see them so you will meet them again and again. Scattered diamond lights of hot molten heat. So much dust and the smell of a forest, the scent of skin, a pair of luminous eyes and roseate rings of crimson and gold, palpitating. The eyes stayed in her head, scripted across the front of her mind, a cherished promise of passionate connection and adventure.
Find the eyes and do not look away. Stay with the eyes and they stay with you. Skin knowledge holds your key. Turn it when you find it; when you find her.
A gauzy veil of sparkling lights and the most ancient sounds wafted around the carriage. Later people would claim amazingly peaceful sleep after years of insomnia; others couldn’t stop smiling for weeks radiating good will to all; a few even claimed they dreamed of a creature part animal part woman, who slept by the wayside of a summer forest path, waiting for her destined love. How could all the stories be true or wrong?
Sometimes no one knows. Bella knew she would meet her destiny in a forest, so she went out prepared with a picnic. Since the beginning of her erotic life, Bella felt her cells all queuing up in her body, occasionally finding pleasure, but knowing somewhere something, someone must be waiting for her too. When she glimpsed those eyes and could not tear herself away, then all that played at her happiness except Basil, dissolved.
Hello across a few feet of perfectly still forest air. A zephyr whisper about their cheeks. Have you ever felt you were falling into someone’s gaze and that their gaze held a tunnel to a cavern where soul kisses waited.
