Transatlanticism

He straightened his tie, the tuxedo creased to perfection.
Jauntily waved a goodbye to the wife who smiled at his rakish precocity.
She shook her head, but he never saw –
The Look of Love, the Visual Caress she gave him as he turned and left.
She would never know, and he would never tell.

Tinkling champagne glasses, the chink of cutlery, glittering diamonds on necks and ceilings, glittering ice cubes in glasses of expensive liquor.
It was here that he would see the other her – she dripping diamonds, he oozing charm.
Polite talk over portions of cuisine neither liked.
Dainty laughter. Suave smiles. The rise and fall of conversation.
Dancing eyes with little reflections of the blazing fire in the mantelpiece, the steady gaze, never looking away.
Little gestures and moving closer; compliments flowing like the wine in their glasses.
A surreptitious hand around faked cold shoulders on the balcony that really wasn’t chilly.
The bubbling excitement of the treacheries they both were committing.
They would never know, and they would never tell.

The wife, meanwhile, sat at home, polishing picture frames with pictures from the wedding.
Picture-perfect life cut out from glossy monthly magazines.
That’s what she thought anyway.
Their young child blissfully asleep, blissfully ignorant.
Just like his mother.
Just like his mother, who never realised when her home had turned into just a house.
Who never realised that she was turning into the china dolls she used to collect.
Who never saw the warmth slipping away.
Who never realised that the gifts he gave her were just a ruse – the other one got so much more, but she never realised.
She would never know, he would never tell.

When he got home, he was never guilty.
Never repentant.
The other her was quite the same.
She was conning someone too.
But the one who was being conned would never realise; she never intended on disclosure.
Even he was proud of his stunningly beautiful acquisition, in a perpetual state of wonder since her assent to his proposal.
He called her his ‘social butterfly’ – not seeing that his butterfly had long before flitted away.
And all he was left with was a ghost of an exquisite elusive shadow who fibbed.
But even he would never know, and she would never, ever tell.

And so they lived their lives.
In glitzy parties and premieres over sparkly bubbly, the man and the woman met.
Locked gazes, witty repartee. The tension that was born out of the forbidden.
Hand in criminal hand, unlawful banter, illegitimate intimacy.
The rush of blood to the head – the floating sensation.
Like yin-and-yang – he the black, she white – she the Bonnie, he Clyde.
In together in something so wrong, but so right.

But tonight -
The butterfly and her consort slightly tipsy, giggled down the stairs
Inebriated just by the presence of the other, he hailed a carriage.

But tonight -
The lover who loved the butterfly’s shadow came looking for his capricious spouse
Driving fast, as impatient lovers are apt to do.

But tonight -
The flighty temptress’ high companion marched onto the street.
The last thing he saw were headlights on the dim boulevard.
As the lights neared fast, he thought of the blissful ignorant;
It was just ironical how he left that thought incomplete,
Just as incomplete he had made his wife’s life.
It was just ironical she had never realised what he had done to her.
He took his secret to the grave tonight.

Tears flowed like the champagne had, but the tears were from the eyes of the one he had never acknowledged.
She had loved him the way she was supposed to.

Magnificent funeral, haunting melodies on the organ, marble mausoleum, loving epitaph.
Black and tears the fashion of the day.
The grieving wife never knew who that mysterious woman was, who smiled sadly and laid a rose on the coffin.
The grieving child soon forgot the father he had never really remembered.
The grieving wife recovered in time.
But she never knew, and he never told.