“I am but a lonely hunter; searching true for what is mine. I do not desist in my quest because I cannot. Forward, I am impelled, not by desire but by fate. Not by yearning but instinct. Do you hear me? Does my voice reach the inner chambers of your mind?” Maggie looked up from her paperback and scanned the crowded bus with her eyes. No one looked in her direction or met her gaze, yet she was certain someone had spoken to her.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and exhaled deeply as if it would cool her off. She looked down at her chubby arms and protruding stomache with dismay. “It’s the weight,” she thought to herself. “If I weren’t so damned fat I wouldn’t sweat so much.”
The man next to her gave her a sidelong glance and moved further against the window and away from her.
Had she said the words out loud? Or was he as repulsed by her body as she was?
“I am a lonely hunter,” the voice said again.
She looked around sharply, certain this time someone was playing a cruel joke. As people had done all her life. Speaking when she wasn’t looking. Making derisive comments when they thought she couldn’t hear. But she did hear, all of them, every time they were uttered. But on this bus, there didn’t seem to be the least interest in her from anyone. She craned her neck to see and found herself staring into frosty grey eyes. “What are you looking at?” the teen-aged girl asked.
“I thought you said something to me,” Maggie mumbled.
“Why would I say anything to you? I don’t talk to fat pigs,” the girl snorted, causing the earring in her nose to nearly climb her nostril.
Maggie turned away, red-faced and fighting tears.
The bus driver called out her stop and she rose as gracefully as she could though she knew she looked like a pregnant cow and everyone was looking at the fat lady trying to keep her balance as the bus came to a halting stop.
Sweat popped out on her forehead and under her nose, beneath her blouse she could feel it running down her sides from her armpits.
With as much grace as she could muster, she waddled up the aisle to the exit, smiled briefly at the bus driver and got off the bus.
The sky was bright with afternoon sunshine and though she squinted against the light it raised her morale. She made the two-block walk home slow and easy. She smiled at the little children she passed, as they played and giggled. She stopped at a small flower shop and bought herself a bouquet of flowers. She was tempted to stop and get a quart of her favorite ice cream, but instead bought a big bag of fresh fruit. She told herself she would have a fruit salad for dinner and go for a walk afterward. Though she knew she would probably only go as far as the corner market and get the ice cream anyway.
“You are my fate, my destiny…” the voice resounded in her mind.
She shook her head, chasing the voice from her consciousness. She took out her keys and entered her apartment. It cheered her every time she saw it. She had decorated it herself and it was to her, the most beautiful place on Earth.
She turned on some music, went to the kitchen, took out a bowl, a knife and a cutting board and began to slice up her fruit for her salad.
She hummed along to the music and her heart was light for a moment.
“Maggie, do not reject me,” the voice whispered in her ear.
She startled on the sound, causing the apple she was slicing to slide off the cutting board onto the floor. She turned and saw she was alone.
“It must be the heat,” she told herself. “I need a shower. I’m hot and tired.”
She put her salad in the refrigerator to chill and went into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and stepped under the cool water. She closed her eyes and imagined herself, slim and beautiful, being washed slowly and sensually by her lover. His golden skin against hers, his hands caressing her with water and lather. She could smell him, feel his breath against her neck, his erection against her buttocks, she nearly swooned from the magic of the moment.
The water became suddenly cold, her eyes popped open and she found herself alone and shivering. She stepped carefully out of the shower, she was shaking so she was afraid she would slip and fall.
She towelled off, her back to the mirror, ashamed of her body of lax flesh and cellulite. “You are so beautiful,” the voice was like liquor reaching into her nervous system and soothing her. She pretended not to hear him, not feel his presence. She told herself it was the depression speaking, that she must get her mood elevator prescription renewed.
“Open your eyes,” the voice was right behind her, the breath warm and sweet. “Look into the mirror,” he coaxed her.
She gave in and turned, afraid but determined. She would look into the mirror, eyes opened wide and defy her ghosts. She stood upright, threw back her shoulders and dared the reflection to make her afraid. A gasp escaped her lips when she took in the reflection that looked back. She was thin, beautiful, sensual; she saw herself as she really was, inside.
But most shocking was that she was not alone; the man of her fantasies stood behind her, glorious in his nakedness. He smiled at her.
“Who are you?” she stammered.
“I am yours,” he responded his breath so near it seemed to come out of her.
“No,” she shook her head, “I’m imagining this. You aren’t real.”
“Then turn around, Maggie, and see that I am real,” he had a hypnotic effect on her.
She obeyed his command without thinking. He told the truth, he was still there, not just a reflection of the mirror or her mind. She reached out her hand and it met with flesh, young and sinewy, warm and carnal. “I can feel you,” she whimpered.
“And I can feel you,” he caressed her cheek. “We are not lost any more, we are found, we are, as we should be, one.”
She fell into his embrace and wept. “I have waited so long for you to come back,” she whispered. “Where have you been? Why have you waited so long to return to me?”
He did not speak. His lips sought hers, his fingertips caressed her back, found their way to her buttocks and thighs. You could think of nothing but giving herself over to his passion and control. “Yes,” she murmured as his lips moved down her body, and brought her to ecstacy. Better than her dreams, her fantasies, he answered her.
***
“All done here,” the M.E. said to the EMT.
The EMT nodded and zipped up the body bag. He paused and looked back to the M.E. “Hey Doc, what do you think killed her?”
The M.E. shrugged. “Heart attack?”
“But she died with a smile on her face.”
The M.E. scratched at his stubble. “Maybe she was so happy it stopped her heart.”
copyright 2006
