More or Less

Minxie lied to me, more or less, she told me whatever she thought would subdue the beast while her cohorts scowled in the background, no doubt to add credence to her performance. How she made my heart sigh, the devious person before me had gone from artless young ornament into a calculating, manipulative creature into my kindred soul. She embraced the Dubois within with an alacrity that was not only charming but it had stirred my passion to its depths. I left our meeting more in love than I arrived and determined to wreak a world of havoc upon her universe for I might have been a fool once, but never twice my love, never twice.

While I had allowed my sweet her performance at luncheon it was not until I had returned to my office for the truth of that meeting became apparent. Though her trite band of merry mayhem vixens had sent venomous barbs my way, it was the furtive under glances that had registered in my mind. It was the half looks, the tacit agreements between her and the Nordic Valkyrie which lingered like an afterthought, lying dormant until I was removed from her company. When I am with my dear cousin I find myself distracted by the porcelain of her skin, the curve of her breast, the glitter of hatred in her eyes and it is not until we have parted that the cold smooth marble of sanity restores my thoughts.

I sat in my chair denying calls and ignoring the attempts of my assistant to glean my attention, for my mind was occupied with the peripherals of a luncheon. I was not concerned by our threat and counter threat, for thrust and parry was the nature of our relationship, no it was absence of actual conflict. Minxie put on a show of despair and trepidation, but it was just that, only a show and even her somewhat acquiescence of attending the compound for a little family reunion was again merely for appearance. I looked out over the city while running the entire scene through my mind, the chickens cackling in the background, minxie barely glancing at the songbird, then hiding behind her hair and it was not despair nor defeat that kept her subdued it was the fear of discovery.

My precious had been lying through her teeth, more or less, and she knew that once her eyes had met mine I would have read her like the pulp fiction her life had become. She lied, not to keep me at bay but to keep me close and so as I watched the last rays of day escape the dark edges of the city, I asked myself why would my sweet, the woman who hated me beyond hate wish to keep me close. The answer rang through my mind like a bell on a clear night as I had been so lost in the immediate concerns of my own agenda that I had not been perceptive to her agenda—that my love was going to arrange my demise. Not socially, not wishfully, not even professionally, no my sweet was really going to attempt to remove my presence from this world.

My entire being became suffused with a longing so great that had I been able I would have wept for minxie had crossed the threshold and now truly was mine. I felt a dark flood of desire fuse to my very being as now minxie was a veritable Dubois, one far more worthy than my aloof sister or venomous cousin. Neither of them had the daring to challenge my authority and this transported me to a paradise I had not encountered since my first encounters with their innocence. Minxie was to be my salvation and my destruction, for a life once devoid of possibilities now sang with the opportunities of a worthy adversary. Minxie had embraced her heritage with a vengeance that sparked an irrepressible desire in me and I knew that whatever the outcome for the first time since my youth the flame of life was finally burning in me. She would be mine forever, as I am the voice in her soul burning to her very core, refusing to be silenced until we unite, in love or hate, it is all the same to me, more or less.

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