She wears lavendar.

And I love her.

When I lift my head slightly, I can see her in the pool. She disdains caps, preferring to let her hair flow behind her. She looks like a mermaid when she swims.

I am supposed to be working now. My official title is “Vineyard Manager”, but my job description consists of two words – pleasing her. And I do my job well. She stole me away from Los Angeles; but with a promise of annual billing of over a million, my bosses packed my desk for me.

If I looked all over the world, I could not find two women so dissimilar as she and Joyce. Joyce was earthy and arty and I loved her once. I left Joyce and my girls and never looked back. I don’t get faxes from my secretary any more. Joyce used to write and tell me what was happening. I haven’t had a letter in almost a year now.

She cried when she found the invitation to Buffy’s graduation. I folded her in my arms and promised her I wouldn’t go. I would never leave her. I sang to her then, a song my grandmother used to sing to me.

Lavendar’s blue, dilly dilly
Lavendar’s green
When I am King, dilly dilly
You shall be Queen

She smiled through her tears and wiped them away with the hem of her dress. Just for a second, triumph shone bright through the gauzy lavendar, and I wondered. Then I was lost in her love again, and we made plans to move to her home.

The light here is golden, yet it etches everything with complete clarity. It’s what I think ‘pellucid’ is. Which leads me to think of Pellucidar, that inside-out world. The author never says whether or not the inhabitants of that world feel hemmed in. Can you miss what you’ve never known? Would a part of you always hunger for the feel of open sky? For freedom?

I could get up from my chair and walk away. I could fly back to the US and take up the reins of my old life. But then she smiles at me and I feel my bonds tighten. I have traded freedom for love, and I did so with my eyes open.

I miss my girls sometimes. Their faces fade away until I have to ferret out the few pictures I managed to bring with me and hide from her. I gaze on their bright, smiling faces and hope that they love and laugh. That the sunshine is bright for them, and cloudy days few.

They would not understand this love. This love that led me to walk away from them, to leave them behind. I cannot explain it to them, I cannot even explain it to myself. I crave her, her body, her mind. How she shelters me from the world.

She walks up the steps out of the pool, water sheeting from her body. The light prisms off the droplets and surrounds her with rainbows. I think I see a halo around that exquisite face; the face that haunts my dreams, even though she is never away from me.

She wears lavendar.

And I love her.

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