She had never dreamt of such excess as she saw in his house. Involved with a man twice her age and three times her intelligence level (she was certain), she found herself on a long weekend with someone who she barely knew. And his house was a palace - a castle wonderland of rather atrocious size, she was a little afraid and very, very overwhelmed. There was nice and classy in that hotel that has five stars by its name way, and then there was this... loads of antiques, ancient game heads littering the wall, stiff finery, and many many priceless pieces. It was beautiful in an upsetting way and not very comfortable. She woke up in his bed, with him gone, and a slight smell of must and cologne. The house was centuries old.She wandered out into the grounds that day. Peacocks were kept there, she could hear their cries, but did not see them. It was an overcast day, and the gardens seemed stifling. Well-planned, or well un-planned, they were artfully artless from time to time, but it was easy to see the touch of the gardeners everywhere, from hothouse rareties transplanted for the warmth of summer out into the open, to perfectly pruned trees. She meandered through the garden, bespelled. She looked around, but eventually got lost. It took her a long time to find her way back.
The weekend, she knew, was just a weekend. And she was ok with that. That was the way it was in the movies, in the tv shows. It was the social norm and she was well aware. A weekend on a yacht, in a mansion, in the glamour of richness and then it all went away, and one was cinderella again, without the slipper and the pumpkin smashed. However, this time, she was looking forward to the pumpkin smashing. It seemed a little frightening to her at the moment - too big, and too sparkly, and too magical. She couldn't wait to get back to her spare and clean little apartment in the neither clean nor safe neighborhood in which she lived. She hoped her cat was alright.
That night she met him for dinner. Even while on weekend he was busy, and had been making telephone calls and sending emails all day. He looked stressed, and tired - older than even usual. He was like a lion, you know, but all silver. He had really entranced her with his sense of being alive - his sense of living. And he still had it. How he kept it in this house, she didn't know.
He asked her about her day, and she told him it had been leisurely. She also told him bluntly, that she was rather lonely. She understood he had business affairs, the weekend was lovely, but she did not think she would be coming back. He looked at her, startled, and then smiled a brilliant, breathtaking smile. He was most assuredly one of those men who got more handsome as they aged, not less. She wished wistfully that she was the same.
He laughed and threw back his head and seemed to accede to this, and she smiled and they did have a lovely night. He was older than her by far, but his experience was therefore greater, and so her enjoyment was also.
He returned her to her apartment on Monday morning, in time for work that afternoon. Her waitressing job didn't pay much, but she did her best, and worked a lot. She went to the gym that day, dressed for work, and headed in.
She was angry to see he was at one of her tables. She had cut him off; this was indeed one of his favorite spots to eat (how else would they have gotten to know each other?) but her table? It seemed slightly tactless. And he was looking more brilliant than ever. How did he endlessly look like the most intelligent person in the world?
He looked at her with sparkling eyes and she melted at him. She did like him a great deal. Here in town they were not so far apart as when they were at his "country house."
The weeks flew past, and he was courting her, without a doubt.
The ring came in a few months. He had not met her friends, she had not met his. But she looked at him, and saw a future of rosy, glowing moments, held in his very certain and self-assured arms, and let him slide it onto his finger.
She tried to take it off that night for a shower, and it wouldn't come. But she didn't worry too much.
The wedding was being planned for some months hence; she was quite happy, though nervous and worried about their social groups. But when she was with him (in his town car, at the opera, in his flat high above the city), she felt beautiful, endlessly sexy, and self-assured. Like she had never felt before, in fact.
He showered her with jewels. Earrings: diamonds studs, bracelet: tennis and VERY expensive. Every time she put them on, she didn't want to take them off, and since he was paying her rent now, it really wasn't necessary.
Except, of course. THAT night. After another rare and overpriced trinket, they had a fight. She wanted kids. Why had they not discussed this? He didn't. He definitely didn't. She cried, and she walked away from him, and she didn't want to talk to him. She tried to take off the jewels, but they stuck, like glue. It was as if they were holding onto her. She didn't want them any more. Not only had they fought, he had been very, very cruel. He had asked her quite clearly why he would want to have children at his age with someone like her. Like her? She was just a toy was a clear and blinding realization.
But the jewels wouldn't leave, and neither would he. She didn't want either of them - at first. Until the stress of losing him, her job, her life, all swept over her. She returned, like a puppy, happy at least to be his plaything.
The jewels grew over the years. They built upon her. She literally became laden with them. They were expensive, and beautiful, and they wouldn't come off. And she learned to live with the weight of the rings on her fingers, and the pearls around her neck, and she learned to live with other things, too. Many things she had not thought of, she had not anticipated.
She was, quite literally, bejeweled.
The night he died was a solemn one. He was old, and decrepit, and his eyes were fierce now with anger at his fate, not self-assured. And he looked at her, bejeweled in his wealth, and he began to cry, angry tears.
He cried at her, and beckoned her close, and looking at her, he said quite clearly "I hate you."
She staggered back, and as she did so, she saw his eyes soften. A ring loosened and dropped from her finger. "You didn't make me happy, and I made you miserable," he said, clearly again, and the tiara fell from her head. He was smiling now - he looked light, elated. He continued on, with every word, a weight fell from her.
Finally, she was bare, and felt herself for once in the twenty years they had been wed. She came to his bedside. She clasped his hand.
She was not crying, but she looked at him with a small smile. "Thank you," she replied to all of this simply, and he patted her hand calmly, and drifted off to sleep. He never awoke.
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