Ruined by Murder Addicted to Love

 Chapter Eight: Coed Ballerina

“The ballet is a purely female thing. It is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener.”

— George Balanchine, Choreographer

Having left the Rose Club, Carmela walked Almarón back to his apartment. Once he was in bed and under the covers, from its edge, she watched him sleep fitfully. She had intended to remain long enough to know that he was alright, but her emotional tiredness from the ordeal caught up with her, and she fell asleep on his bed.

Almarón woke up in the middle of the night and discovered his friend asleep next to him, her arm wrapped around his torso. Without disturbing her slumber, he slipped away and tiptoed across his bedroom, retrieved a light blanket from his closet, and placed it gently over her. Not able to return to sleep, he picked up a chair, put it near the bed, and, facing her, he sat down. Watching Carmela for a long time satisfied his understanding of what she meant to him at this critical time. Her presence and her loyalty, he concluded, gives me great solace. He vowed to remember that.

Observing her, his earlier allusion to their never having sexual desires toward each other resurrected and moved to the fore of his thoughts. The answer to his question, however, never appeared.

How can it be...” he wondered aloud under his breath ... how can it be with someone as lovely and beautiful as you, Caramel that never have we shared a sexual intimacy? What fate do the gods have in store for us, my good friend?”

She stirred and shifted on the bed, and he stopped talking aloud but let his thoughts continue.

How could I never have tried to make love to you? You are such a gorgeous creature. And so beautiful, my friend.

 Presently, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, drifting back to another time, one year later than the springtime when he met Mandy.

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