Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance) (20 page)

“You did
?
”

“Yes. That’s the truth. I promise you, it’s the truth.”

“Boys are late starters,” he admitted.

Touched by this, she reached out and gripped his hand. Her small fingers latched on between his big thumb and his forefinger, and this light caress, this dainty consoling feminine touch, was instantly welded there. Blasted into place by lightning. Two carved hands from a slab of iron could not unite so solidly.

Romance was not a soft, weak, mushy-headed feeling. Romance was a diamond-hard, rock-solid, clarifying feeling. True romance was a breakthrough to the highest level of being.

Romance was pure. Romance was meaning and reason. Meaning and reason
to live
. A living heat came over Farfalla. A raw desire to be a living woman. Desire climbed from her thundering ribcage and shot up the pulsing column of her neck. A searing, burning blush. A blush like a lighthouse signal blaring over oceans.

She dropped his hand.

They were surrounded by dozens, hundreds of other people. She stood stranded there among the jabbering crowd, sweating and flaming-faced and trembling in her heart-piercing tumult, and not a one of them took any notice. A complete explosion in her private world, and not a one of them knew.

Yes, the people saw their own reality, but they knew nothing of love. Her inner cosmos had exploded with meaning, and bright stars were pin-wheeling out of her every pore, and they couldn’t have known or cared less. All they saw was what their own ideas let them see.
Hmm, look at that translator talking so seriously to that conference speaker. They must have a lot to discuss.

They stood like two bronze statues among the wandering crowd. People routed around them respectfully. Very keep-a-distance, very do-not-disturb.

She glanced up into his eyes. Oh, he knew what was happening. His face, his whole body was glowing all over with awareness. She knew that he knew. He wanted this to happen. And he wanted more to happen. Because he wanted her. Hungrily. It could not have been more obvious if they were peeling each other’s clothes off.

Then — confused and harassed, as always — Lust awoke. Lust arose from the tangled nest of dirty sheets in Farfalla’s mental basement. Lust rose bleary-eyed to her feet and she thundered up the stairs, making a frenzied, pounding rush against the door of the control-room.

GET INTO BED WITH HIM RIGHT NOW!
Lust screamed. Farfalla’s Lust had flaming yellow eyes and hungry teeth and a rather flat head, but Lust was screeching her very best common sense.
GET HIM! GRAB HIM! RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW! YOU’RE ALWAYS MISSING THE PERFECT MOMENT,
Lust howled.

Not here and now in front of everybody. I’m shy.

You stupid cow, you ALWAYS tell me that! I am BIGGER than you, and I am OLDER than you, and if you miss out this time, I WILL KILL YOU! You think your Rage and your Jealousy are scary, just wait till I get my hot, drippy hands on you! I will tie you up in knots inside! You will never know another night of peace! If you don’t satisfy me, I will shrivel you into a cricket!

“The problem is, tomorrow morning, I have to leave this island,” Gavin told her, and it was such a coldly foresightful thing to say that Lust shrank back, as if Lust had been slapped.

Oh, what a torment, that true prediction he had just uttered to her. What an awful man, to say such a hateful and very true thing. To cage her in the hateful jail of space and time. Crushed in the iron cage of her mortal existence. Oh, oh, just to be free. Just to be free, not to think, but to be free to love.

Just one night without the taint of sorrow and oppression that so clearly awaited them.

Capri, Capri, Lotus Island. No wonder the place was such a haven!

“I don’t want to say one word to these goddamned people,” Gavin mumbled. “Can’t we please get away from here? These fools around here, maybe they’re doing their best... but you and me,
we can’t even help it!
That speech of mine is a
fraud.
You know it, I know it!”

“What do you want to do?”

“Anything but a stupid speech about market forecasts! What about me, what about
my
future? My future doesn’t have one single thing that I want! My future is nothing but
more of the same
, always the same, only
worse
!”

“Not all of your time,” she told him. “When you were with
me
, our time was
good.
”

His look of desperation faded. He had heard her, he was thinking about what she said. “Well... Yeah, you’re right about that. Of course that’s true. When you and I were hanging around, together... I was totally thrilled to be here. To be here
with you
, I mean. I was having the time of my life.”

“Gavin, my life is
bad.
I have a hard life. But not with you. When you are here, my life is
different
.”

A gentler, more thoughtful look touched his face. “Well, why is that? Why is that happening to us?”

“We belong together.”

“I can see that, too — but
why
do we belong together?”

“Because
people love us together.
That’s why. People jump when we walk down the street. Did you see that?”

“I did see that,” he said. “I didn’t want to mention it to you... Because, well, I tend to bump into people.”

“I have to dodge people. I have to hide from people. People step on me.”

“Did you see how everyone around here asks the two of us for directions? They stop us in the street to beg us for help!”

“Well, you always have that map...”

“Once they asked us four times in five minutes! What are the odds of that? None of them asked me, they only ask the two of us! That phenomenon is off-the-charts! That is a futurist harbinger, that is. That really proves there’s something going on with us!”

She looked into his glowing face. She could not believe the joyful torment that was pouring through her soul and body. Here he was at last. Her One. And she knew, and he knew! What a triumph! What a perfect, beautiful moment! Radiant Destiny!

Yet, the sacred moment passed them by. It felt eternal to her panging heart, yet it passed. The world was stealing all their precious moments from them, hour by hour. She could not help but know that. The future, the future...

So much time... Think of all the wasted years they had lost from their lifetimes, already! And think of the bitter years that would succeed this sweet perilous moment, this tremendous burst of emotional light...

“We are two doomed lovers,” she said. “We are star-crossed.”

“You think
I
don’t know that? Of course, I already know that we love each other, and we are doomed. That is so obvious.”

“Our love is a disaster. I’m so happy right now that I want to die.”

“You don’t have to tell
me
about that! Look at all these clowns... I’m about to give a
speech
that’s a disaster! I’m about to step up on that stage and make a total ass of myself! Just blathering
nothing
at people... Empty lies and hypocrisy... There is no way! Get me out of here. I refuse to do it.”

Ferocious rebellion struck her. “I hate this! I won’t do it either! Let’s forget how doomed we are! Let’s tell everybody how
great
we are! I don’t
want
to be doomed like Cassandra! I want to feel
alive and beloved and
beautiful.
Let’s change the story!”

“We’ll write a new speech?”

“You recite it, and I’ll translate it. If I say it and and you speak it, then I’m not Cassandra,
perfetto.
We’ll write our own speech here and now.”

“You want me to throw my script aside, and jump into this blind? What are you saying to me? I’m an accountant! There’s no way.”

“You are my One! You are my hero! You are my pride and joy! You are my prince, you are my Futurist god! The future belongs to you!”

Her rush of passion blasted him out of his rut. “I get what you’re saying,” he said. “Let’s just do this Italian-style — ‘devil-may-care slap in the face of dark fate,’ and all that? I love that idea! It’s genius!”

“Let’s be Futuristi! Like Marinetti said to do it! ‘Courage, audacity and revolt!’”

“Okay, but... well, wait a second. Realistically, look. I’m not an Italian Futurist. Those guys are a hundred years old, they’re all dead. That’s not me at all, that’s surely not my future.”

“
Our
future. Our beautiful, wonderful future, together. ‘Danger, energy, and fearlessness.’”

He gazed at her in astonishment. “You are some piece of work.”

“You can do it, if you desire to do it. Just for one performance.”

“That is so beautiful.… but I frankly don’t see how that’s possible. You and I, we have no future. In twenty-four hours, I’ll be flying back to my home.”

“That is not true, handsome. You still have one night in Capri.” Farfalla touched his chin with her finger. “I can’t promise you eternity. Because, I am a mortal woman. But I can promise you
me.
Look at me. Look here, at me. I love you. I am yours. You can have anything you want from me.”

He said nothing.

“That is my promise,” she said, crossing her heart.

“That’s a rather cheering and motivating thing for a woman to predict to a man.”

She said nothing.

“The predictions you make along that line are extremely accurate, aren’t they.”

“I don’t make many.”

“That is the most beautiful thing that I have ever heard. That was the most wonderful thing that anyone has ever said to me. That was a piece of true Futurist poetry. That gorgeous thing you foretold has changed my world forever. Even if I die in the next five minutes, I will die as another, better kind of man.” He cleared his throat. “So, how long do we have to create this fantastic speech that makes everybody happy but us?”

“Twenty minutes?”

“Piece of cake. Twenty minutes is forever.” He yanked his laptop from his bag.

Chapter Thirteen: Translation is Treason

Gavin strode to the podium, his laptop tucked under his arm. He set the machine on the podium, and tilted the mike up. The screen held the first lines of his new speech: “I come before you today as a man of a new generation: a cool, calm, collected, and confident generation. A brilliant generation blessed with global connectivity.”

After that, he was winging it from a frenzied scattering of notes.

However, this situation felt okay. In fact, it felt perfect. It was never hard to talk about a future that was all wild, unpredictable, joyous make-believe.

Gavin didn’t know the way to the end of his speech, but he knew his destination. It was like driving down from Seattle to Silicon Valley. He would get there for sure, if he held onto the wheel and avoided the ditches.

Besides, he could see Farfalla’s eager face, glowing behind the glass of her translation booth. That made every difference in the world to him. There was a beautiful woman, eagerly hanging onto his every word. Any hot-blooded male could find some eloquence in that situation.

A speech requiring translation necessitated speaking at half speed. Half-speed meant a lot of solemn pauses. Thoughtful pauses, which made him seem dignified and deep.

After ten minutes, Gavin realized this was the best speech he had ever given. This was a speech in a league by itself. It might be a fake future, but it was a real speech. He was compelling, when he spoke like this. He was persuasive. He was connecting. He was seductive, even.

It was a pleasure to tell
her
about the future. Their future, together. All he had to do was promise her the great, golden moon!

Was that so wrong? To promise a woman the moon? Was romantic hokum even a lie? The world was full of
millions
of men promising glorious happiness to women! Didn’t women fall for that nonsense like ninepins? Vast
majorities
of women, even? When women finally figured out it was just sweet mushy nothings from an ardent suitor, were they upset about that? Really? Ever?

You didn’t have to be sticky-sweet about it. No, it was great when a young couple boldly faced up to their challenges! Uniting their fortunes! Building a home! Starting a family! “For better or worse!” “Worse” put some skin in the game. “Worse” made love a decision of consequence.

Love cast out fear! For a mortal man and woman to unite as one was the ultimate triumph of hope! Didn’t people marry during wars? Of course, they got married! In wars, people would marry anybody, even foreigners! Didn’t people marry during horrible plagues? Of course, people would marry during plagues! They needed those children to replace the host of the dead!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was what tomorrow was all about! That vital willingness to awake with the new dawn, to join the marching pageant of a vivid world, where only the brave deserved the fair, where the cringing pessimist and the sneaking cynic were properly scorned! A glorious Italian future entirely worthy of the finest moments of its past! As the great prophet Garibaldi had once commanded (in Italian of course),
“Women of Italy! Cast away all cowards from your embraces! They will give you only cowards for children!”

It took ten seconds for the crowd to realize that Gavin was speaking in Italian, and also quoting Garibaldi. But then, they just lost it. They were stunned to hear an American accountant utter such an unlikely, off-the wall sentiment. Applause banged off the convent’s stony walls like shotgun blasts.

Everybody in the audience who spoke English was looking askance at him now. Clearly, they had him figured for drunk. But the Italians were totally digging the presentation. Basically, the Italians were cheering wildly for every line Farfalla had spoken into their ears.

Pretty soon, all the English-speakers in the audience were figuring him for a sly dog. A wily character. They envied his suave ability to connect with people from another culture. He had the room in the palm of his hand!