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At first I thought I'd imagined her aura from across the room simply because she was heart-stoppingly beautiful. Blamed a product of too many movie moments in my head: the slow-motion swish of her charcoal plait and an orchestral swell as her head turned, those malachite eyes connecting with mine, set atop high cheekbones. But on second look, the shimmering full-body halo remained. Singled her out from all the other guests. Love at first sight wasn't a myth, it seemed. If only I'd known then what I know now I'd have probably walked away instead of allowing her magnetism to draw me across the room to introduce myself. How was I to know she was... The inspector across the cheap melamine table cleared his throat. "Mr. Grantham? You were saying..." I blinked. Refocused. The bare walls ahead and to my sides. The piece of thread on DI Carson's left shoulder that I desperately wanted to brush off, but daren't. The whirring tape recorder on the desk, strangely anachronistic in the digital world. How could I be here? It wasn't just. Couldn't come to terms with it all. Instead I buried my head in my hands and shook, tears I was unaware I needed to shed streaming freely. "I loved her." "Then why kill her?" My hands slammed against the table almost of their own volition. "I didn't!" "Then where is she?" I stared into the hard steel of Carson's unwavering gaze, lashes and eyebrows the only hair on his entire head. Did he practice that look in front of the mirror every day? Metropolitan intimidation, rule 101: instil unease in the suspect. It worked. I broke the stare first, shaking my head. "You won't find her." He snorted. "Is that a challenge?" "Of course not. I'm saving you the wasted effort. She's just... not here any more." "So where is she?" No way would he believe me. I barely believed it myself. Didn't think in a billion years her story could possibly come true. Thought she was just being uptight, or scared of intimacy. I settled for the unoriginal: "You wouldn't understand." "Try me. Start at the beginning." I slumped in the plastic seat. Already having waived my right to legal representation, I had nowhere to go. Took a deep breath. "I met her at the party. Five days before Christmas. Queens Hotel." I'd threaded my way through the tipsy and the bombastic, past too-tight suits and extravagant cocktail dresses to reach her. By comparison, she was effortlessly elegant, almost restrained, the emerald dress hugging her rakish features, revealing only a hint of calf each time the garment dusted the floor alongside her gold heels as she swayed to the music. A brief wave of cold rushed through me. What was I doing approaching a woman so soon after Alicia? Desperation? Revenge? I ought to have listened to my instincts instead of just standing there for a good ten seconds staring at the magnetic woman's backside before lamely uttering, "Hello. You look lost." She turned, even more striking up close, the jewels in her single-strand necklace sparkling all the way to a silver teardrop pendant nestling in the gentle swell of her cleavage, accentuated by the figure-hugging fabric. "So do you." Quickly raising my gaze, I coloured. "Sorry, I..." There was no excuse. I fumbled some sort of introduction: "Saw you standing alone and wondered if you wanted to dance. I'm Chris, by the way." She regarded me fully, head to toe and back up. Tilted her head to one side and then, seemingly satisfied with whatever criteria I befit, held out the back of her hand towards me. A gesture not of this era, which should Ankara escort have raised alarm bells if the next word from her luscious ruby lips hadn't: "Faye." I never made the connection, libido clouding my judgement. Just reached for her soft hand and led her back between clusters of botox smiles to the dark wood dance floor, heart thudding in counterpoint to the hired orchestra. We were hardly Strictly Come Dancing, but did what we could: one hand on each other's shoulder, fingers of the others entwined alongside our bodies at head height. Step, step, turn, step, each movement drawing her delicate perfume to me, forming complex associations in my limbic system, the most prominent being desire. She was absolutely angelic, especially when I let her twirl. DI Carson interrupted my brief recap. "What did you say her surname was?" "I didn't. She never mentioned it." I paused, the absurdity of the simple question unravelling and connecting previously independent tendrils of thought. "Ever." "So, just Faye?" "Just Faye." With a cheap biro, he jotted it down and underlined it on a notepad, despite the tape recorder making that task largely redundant. "Continue." Faye and I had spent a few hours in one another's company that evening. Dancing in the great hall. Laughing. Grazing on Christmas-themed nibbles. General chit-chat flowed about everything except the weather, which made a refreshing change from the default British topic. I'm unsure why I expected conversation with an accountant to be difficult, but her breezy demeanour made it easy. Until I made a mistake. "You probably get told this all the time, but you're incredibly pretty. Sorry if that sounds cheesy, but it's true." She looked away a second. "Thank you." I took a sip of champagne, the sharp bubbles dancing across my palate. "You just have this... glow about you I find irresistible." Something flickered across her face that I couldn't place. Concern? Curiosity? "You... you can-" she resorted to a whisper, "- see it?" Like a fool, I nodded. She pushed her chair back sharply, eyes narrowing. "Stay away from me." Whirling from the table, I was treated to the sight of her perfect bum sashaying halfway across the room before coming to what I thought were my senses and setting off after her, catching the room's door as it was swinging shut. Her heels clicked across the cavernous lobby at pace. "Faye! Wait!" Over her shoulder, she called back, "I mean it. Keep away." "Why? I don't understand." "You're better off not knowing." I caught up and grappled her hand, spinning her to face me. "Faye, please." She was shaking and twisted herself free. "No. I've survived this long. I'm not going back." "Back where?" I asked. She shook her head resolutely, but I'm renowned for my persistence. "Come on. Please. Sit with me and forget I said anything about your?" I waved my hand. "It's Christmas and I enjoy your company. Please?" After a little more cajoling we settled in the bar area on plush crimson armchairs. Just us and the barman, who could have been Jason Statham's stunt double. Soft Chopin wove delicately between the conversation peaks and valleys as I re-earned her trust while more Champagne, expensed on the corporate tab, scuffed the edges of her demeanour enough that I brought up her appearance again. "So can anyone see your glow?" "I thought I said..." "I know, I know. Indulge me. I'm genuinely curious." Eyeing me over the champagne flute, she sighed, "You're the first. At least, that I know of." Ankara escort bayan "And that's bad because?" She gulped. "It means we're compatible." "And that's bad because?" "I could lose everything." I started to laugh but stopped when it was clear she was serious. "Sorry. Bit dramatic though, you have to admit." "I knew you wouldn't understand." "So help me understand." She finished the remainder of the effervescing liquid and set down her flute, fixing me with a slightly cross-eyed stare. "Not here." "Where?" "Are you sure you want to know? You can't un-know this." I couldn't possibly imagine anything so dreadful it required this level of abstruseness. But then I'm only human, and when we were both standing in the centre of her hotel room with the lights out, she convinced me she wasn't. DI Carson spluttered. "That's the best you've got? That she's an alien? Should I fetch Mulder?" "I didn't say alien. I said not human." "Same thing." "It's not. May I continue?" The inspector waved his hand dismissively, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands behind his shiny head. Faye's faint yellow-blue glow strengthened as our proximity increased. I reached out to see if I could feel it, and the hue intensified as I passed through the aura to stroke her shoulder, then temple. "Incredible," I breathed. Satisfaction crept across her heavenly features. "You should try being me. I haven't felt that in a long time. A long time." I stepped close enough to detect the freshness of her skin beneath the perfume and we became bathed in yellow. Need surged through me with a potency I'd not felt for months. Maybe years if I was being honest. A powerful ebb that gripped my entire exoskeleton and filled me with warmth that spread from my lips to my stirring cock. Unsure if she'd try and stop me, I took a chance and moved closer still, our lips brushing then connecting. I tasted bittersweet champagne, waxy lipstick, and the promise of her body as the room lit almost like daytime. A few enchanting seconds was the extent of our embrace before she pushed me away and the light shrank to just her silhouette. "We can't." "I want to. You do too." "I know. But we can't." She melted into the shadows and once again I was treated to her rear leaving. How anyone could be so alluring from every angle and remain unattached was beyond belief. "Will I see you again?" Her hand on the door handle, she called back, "Probably." "How will I get in touch?" "You won't. I need some time to think. I'll find you." And with that, the glow faded and the auto-close mechanism swung the door shut. It was three long days until I saw her again. Three days to try and process what I'd seen, yet more questions than answers remained. Google proved fucking useless. She was clearly not of this world, but that begged the question to which world did she belong? Spirits glowed, but as far as I could make out, couldn't be touched. I wondered if fallen angels might exhibit similar traits and watched Luc Besson's film Angel-A for perspective. It was good, but ultimately as helpful as the search engine. At one point I convinced myself that, so desperate for love after the shattering end to three years with the same two-timing bitch, I'd conjured a perfect apparition. About to give up hope, I spotted her glow approaching from across the street. She was still radiant without the dress, somehow making jeans and a T-shirt sexy as she pushed open the café door and slid into the chair opposite me. I offered to Escort Ankara buy her coffee. She chose a bottle of water and sipped it as smiling waitresses ferried drinks and cakes on trays between kitchen and patron. I rested a sugar cube on my spoon and dipped the base of it into my drink, watching the brown seep upwards before fully stirring. "Have you had time to think?" "Yes." "And?" "I don't know." I deflated a little. "But you're here. That counts for something." "I guess." "How about we just do something normal? Like dinner and a movie? See how that goes." She gazed out of the window and I watched her jaw clenching and unclenching in thought. "Okay. When?" "Tonight?" "Okay." "Seven?" "Sure. I'll find you." "How?" She smiled. "We're compatible, remember." That afternoon, a nervous energy nibbled at my mind, escalating to complete edginess as evening rolled in. Spent half an hour trying on outfits like a damn woman, deciding which combination worked best. Didn't want to under-dress in case she wore something elegant. Didn't want a full suit in case she chose jeans. In the end I went halfway, settling on smart trousers and a fine-checked shirt that Alicia had bought me for my recent twenty-sixth. I'd only worn it that one time. Alicia, adorned in nothing but expensive plum lingerie, had unbuttoned it on her way to her knees and sucked me to fullness. Spinning around on all fours, she'd then invited me to screw her arse in honour of my birthday because she knew it was a long-held fantasy of mine. Like a fool I believed I'd been her first there. Turned out she'd already been practising. The meal with Faye was Italian, simple, and memorable. In contrast, the movie was American, complicated and forgettable. But I'd be the first to admit I wasn't exactly focused, distracted mainly by her off-white blouse and above-the-knee pencil skirt, imagining what was beneath, and whether I'd see it any time soon. The bottle of Chardonnay during dinner went down easily and the movie was followed by tequila shots at a rowdy bar full of university students. Horny students it seemed, many of them flirting with Faye, but she deflected their advances with ease. Like she was used to it. As the empty shot glasses lined up, the conversation naturally turned to sex, but she remained cagey about her past. Ended up with me doing most of the talking, and her most of the giggling as I bad-mouthed my exes or recounted failed conquests, like the time I leaned over to admire Zoe Spalding's tropical fish and dropped a lump of kebab into the tank. I'm glad I'd refined my cuisine choices since. With linked arms, Faye and I ambled from the noisy bar on far weaker legs than those upon which we entered. Hardly noticed the drizzle and endless throngs of the lecherous and the horny, hailing cabs towards clubs or one-night stands. We came to a junction and I asked which way I should walk her home. "Not my place." "Mine then?" "No." She looked up to the sky as if searching for something, letting the light rain spatter her face. "Let's get a room. Neutral ground." "Uhhh, sure." Malmaison had a spare, even at that hour. Pricey, but with my Drunken Reasoning hat on, I haggled an upgrade for the same rack rate in cold cash, ignoring the judgemental glances from the assistant receptionist. Upon my return from the ATM, I found Faye perusing the paintings in the reception area. Some Jackson Pollock-style shit that looked as if someone had puked on the canvas and called it art. ?You like that?? ?It's disorganised chaos.? ?It's disorganised crap. Three more tequilas and I'll paint you one just like it.? She laughed, reached for my hand and we headed for the elevator, her luminescence changing intensity as we ascended, in response to what I hoped were X-rated thoughts. The room was extravagant but worth the price.