The Devil and the Rose- 6

‘I trust you Linda. The instant I saw you with him, I thought Jack was up to it again.’

‘This is what bugs me the most about you, Rose. Riles me up to no end. You know about his lecherous ways and still choose to stay with him.’

‘But he loves me, Linda,’ reasons Rose.

‘Get real, Rose. He’s a cheat and he knows that you know his cheating ways. He does it all in you face!’

‘You don’t unders… ‘

‘And what about the time when he told you flat he loves you for your body. I can never forget when he told you in that freezing cold way of his – ‘it’s just a body thing, get it? You better get it’ Yes, I heard it all Rose. I had just come through the front door. Just hiding in the living room and waiting for an appropriate time to go in your bedroom. I am surprised you even survived the onslaught that evening.’

‘You don’t understand Linda. He does love me. Just that he can’t help saying all those hurtful things to get back at me for doing something he didn’t like. About that onslaught, like you say, the next day he came and apologized. He got on his knees, wrapped me in his arms and said he was extremely sorry. He made up for that evening.’

‘Nothing can ever make up for a treatment that harsh, Rose. You will understand it once you get over him and look at everything he’s doing to you in an objective way. Right now, you seem to be too blind to see the forest for the trees. This is precisely the reason I am so keen on hooking you up with Peter.’

‘Peter has come at the wrong time Linda.’

‘Peter has come exactly at the right time and don’t you counter that. You need a guy like Peter in your life. You need him to get over Jack.’

Somebody knocked on the door.

‘That must be Peter. Always there at the right time. Read the signs, Rose.’

Linda goes to open the door. It was Peter as Linda had guessed.

‘Hey Linda! Good to see you here. You didn’t come to work today. Why’s that?’

‘Just wasn’t feeling right this morning. I did give sick leave.’

‘Oh did you? You feeling OK now?’

‘Yeah, I am alright now.’

‘Is Rose home?’

‘Yeah, she’s in her bedroom. Ah, there she is.’

‘Peter? I wasn’t expecting you,’ said Rose, heading for the sill.

‘Oh, I was just driving by. Saw Linda’s car and yours as well and came in to say hi. You look beautiful this evening.’

‘What, you mean she doesn’t look beautiful normally?’ interrupts Linda.

‘That’s not what I meant. Today she looks absolutely… Umm what’s that word I’m looking for? Begins with a G and ends with an S. Plenty of vowels thrown around in it. It is on the tip of my tongue. Just can’t bloody get…’

‘Gorgeous?’ Rose chipped in innocently.

‘Yup! You got it, girl,’ agreed Peter and turned to Linda, ‘She looks absolutely gorgeous today. I wish she was working with us. I could meet her everyday then.’

Rose blushed and felt embarrassed. She could feel the affection in Peter’s eyes. Linda excused herself in the mean time to go to the kitchen.

‘I am happy being a teacher, Peter. Accounting is not for me.’

‘How can I get closer to you then, Rose? Anyway, accounting, you say, is not for you; the classroom, I say, presents even more hostile environment for a girl like you. I know those bastards. I know how they think. They are animals! I reckon every single boy in your class is having a crush on you. You are better off looking for a nursing job, Rose.’

Rose laughed.

‘I wish I were a boy in your class,’ continued Peter, ‘I would just stare at you all day long. If possible, I would take extra tuition classes in private. Rob, steal, blackmail or cheat, you name it I would do it. Heck, I’ll even break into houses to pay your tuition fees.’

Rose burst into a hearty laugh. Linda could be heard laughing in the kitchen.

‘No, you wouldn’t.’

‘You’ve got such beautiful set of dentures, Rose. Teeth that cute can’t be real. Your lovely teeth in partnership with your rosy lips bring up some vivid imagery to my fertile imagination. Of roses filled with snow.’

‘I don’t know.’ Rose blushed. Peter was not far off in comparing Rose’s lips with rose petals.

‘I better leave now. Looks like a storm brewing up. Don’t wanna get caught in the middle of it,’ said Peter looking at Rose lovingly. Rose looked at him, stared and lowered eyes.

Linda came in from the kitchen. ‘You leaving?’

‘Yup. Gotta go. Some homework waiting for me back home. Plus I can feel a nasty storm coming. See ya girls!’

‘See ya in the office tomorrow.’

‘Sure thing. I’ll call you later, Rose,’ said Peter and left.

‘I have never seen him in such a good mood. He hardly jokes in the office. But when he’s with you, he… It’s like you bring out the best in him. And hey! I could even feel you brighten in his presence. I haven’t heard you laugh so much, Rose. Don’t you see why? You like Peter. You like to be with him.’

‘No I don’t.’ But she smiled when she said that.

 

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The Devil and the Rose- 7

The next morning Jack came and found Rose in the bedroom.

 ‘Here’s your car key, sweetie. How did you get here?’

‘Peter drove me down.’

‘Who? That wimp?’ Just the mention of Peter was enough for Jack to lose his temper. Lately, he had grown unusually intolerant of Peter.

‘He’s not a wim…’

‘Shut-up and listen to me first, you stupid bitch. Once I am finished you can blurt out your filth. You are putting some wimp in a superior position to me here. For me, you can call it quits anytime you like. From now on, I don’t want any mention of him. Get it? You better get it. You were saying?’

‘I just wante…’

‘Whatever…,’ said he with the brush of hand and stormed out, banging the door behind him. He shouldn’t have. At least not today, of all days.

………………………………..

‘Don’t you dare…,’ Peter said, appearing a bit agitated with Rose.

His visit this evening was not one of his usual. Today was something special to him. He had been waiting for nearly a couple of months now for this day. Rose with her hair open was looking absolutely ravishing in her red top and grey slacks.

She looked puzzled and a little exasperated since this was the first time she had seen Peter in an angry mood, ‘Dare what Peter?  What have I d…?’

‘Don’t you dare look so cute in front of me, young lady. I am warning you.’

Rose burst out laughing.

‘Gosh, you look cute enough to eat! I am your regular nice guy but who knows? If you continue looking this delicious, I might pounce on you. Seriously!’

‘You will do nothing of the sort, Peter. I know you well enough to know that.’

‘Don’t be so sure. Anyway, these are for you.’

‘Why the Roses, Peter?’

‘You know the date today – 11th day of July. I wish you many happy returns. And may the best of your past be the worst of your future.’

Rose blushed and lowered her eyes, ‘Oh! That’s so thoughtful of you, Peter. Even I forgot it’s my birthday today.’

‘Um…I would love to take you out this evening, Rose. If you don’t have any plans for the evening, could…’

‘I do, Peter…Jack wants to take me out. I’ll put these away,’ cut in Rose, feeling embarrassed.

Rose put the Roses in her bedroom and looked lovingly at them, obviously deeply moved. She then went back into the living room.

‘Where’s Linda? I thought she would be here to wish you as well. And Jack? Has he rung? I wonder if he knows it’s your birthday today.’

‘Jack hasn’t called yet. He’s probably coming in the evening’

‘Probably? But you said a moment ago that you have plans with Jack. To go out…’

‘Oh, I must’ve been somewhere else,’ said Rose annoyingly.

Peter looked embarrassed and had that proverbial sinking feeling.

 

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The Devil and the Rose- 8

Patience was not one of Jack’s virtues. He didn’t have many to begin with. And he just revolted when somebody tried to pin him down. Lately he’d been a bit upset because they wanted him to shift base to another city. Cops were beginning to smell something fishy. It’s best to bail out at this point, his associate had said.

‘‘Prove? Prove what? To whom? Nobody is that important to me,’ bellowed Jack on his end of the line.

‘You don’t understand the gravity of the situation, Mr. Thorn. The workers need to be compensated to settle the matter,’ said his associate on the other end.

‘Listen fella, I’ve been behaving very nicely with these people,’ replied Jack. When Jack got angry he threw reason out of the window. ‘All I need to do to settle the matter is’, continued Jack, ‘take the mask off and get the knife out.’

‘All they need to do is inform the cops. And when cops come to know of it, it will not be possible for us to fight them.’

‘I don’t fight, I punish. And if I get it in my brains to finish them off…’

‘Now listen, Mr. Thorn, You can’t do th…’

‘…no cops, no mafia, no luck and no God will save them from me. You can tell them that.’

‘I know they are nothing. But at the moment they seem to be having all the power.’

‘You are forgetting one thing, fella. I need to refresh your memory before I hang up. Power… That’s my game.’

With this Jack slammed the receiver down hard. He hated opposition, especially when it came from virtual nobodies like those minions. He poured whisky in his glass. He loved its smell and the taste. He hated beer though; just couldn’t stand the taste of it. That would be his third drink. In the couple of drinks that preceded it, he had bothered to dilute them with coke. He didn’t this time. It all went down in a couple of swigs.

‘How dare they!’ The glass breaks in his hand and cuts into the inside of his fierce fist, making the blood seep out.

Jack was virtually untouched by the virtue of sensitivity. He looked upon sensitive people as weak. Some women are more masculine than others, and some men are more feminine than others. It seemed nature had not bestowed Jack Thorn with even a shred of femininity. He may have had some sensitivity, but it sure needed a catastrophic event to bring it out in him.

‘Bloody nobodies!’ fumed Jack with broken glass clenched even tighter in his bloodied fist.

………………………………….

Bitch monk never probed into people’s lives, yet people gave him such undeserving name; because he was helpless, because he didn’t hurt anybody. That’s probably why local people never wanted him put in some sort of asylum in the first place; because he was harmless. 

 ‘Why, bitch, why… because you wanted me, bitch, wanted me… to… to wear like him. Why? why? why? To…to…to talk like him?’ stuttered the monk. ‘Get it? Get it? Bitch…’ he continued.

 He wasn’t a very old man, unlike his lifestyle would suggest. Thirty three at the most, if that. But his beard and long graying hair hid his real age. He appeared forty-fiveish to the superficial observers. And nobody observed him closely. They didn’t need to. They knew him as the old monk from that hut up the top who used too many why’s in his speech whenever he spoke and that was it for them.

 

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The Devil and the Rose- 9

Jack entered Rose’s home, obviously in a pretty bad mood. He was swearing and constantly hitting left palm with right fist, like was his habit when excited or angry at something. He went straight to Rose’s bedroom. Getting up from the living room window sill, Rose followed him.

‘For God’s sake, why are you so angry? And what happened to your h…?’

‘There’s no fuckin’ God. There’s only me. Get it? You better get it, you stupid b… what are these roses doing here?’

‘Oh these? Peter came.’

‘You dumb bitch!’ Jack slapped Rose with his good hand, kicked the roses, and trampled on them. Rose fell on the bed face down. Jack turned her over and started to give her another smack.

‘Please Jack! Don’t hit me. Please… It hurts…,’ pled Rose and tried to shield her face from another hit.

‘How many times,’ yelled Jack, ‘do I have to fuckin’ hammer this simple thing through your thick head!’ and again slapped Rose across her face real hard. ‘Keep that wimp away from us or get the fuck…,’ bellowed Jack twisting Rose’s arm and raising his wounded hand for yet another smack.

‘It’s my birthday today, Jack,’ said Rose and started to cry. Jack could see the look of absolute helplessness in her pleading face; pleading to stop hitting her. This was when Jack could be seen melting. Something in Rose’s beseeching face seemed to appeal to the dormant sensitivity in Jack. It must also have been the fact that it was Rose’s birthday.

He took Rose in his lap, ‘Rose… Rose, my beautiful! I… I didn’t mean to do that. You know that, don’t you? It’s like I can’t help hurting you back when you hurt me. I have to get back.’

Rose started crying like a child now with tears rolling down her rosy cheeks. They knew no bound… like some dam had been taken off them. This unseen facet of Jack’s personality seemed to have touched her deeply. She manages to speak among spasmodic sobs ‘I… love… love you… Jack. I love you.’

‘Sorry, Rose. I’m sorry, beautiful. I just so forgot it was…’ Jack hugged her even tighter, like a child in his lap.

‘I’d…I’d…di…’ Rose couldn’t get the words out.

She was weeping violently now and shaking with heaving spasmodic sobs convulsed out of her. Her nose was running and her face feverish with overcharge of emotions. She wasn’t saying anything because she physically couldn’t get the words out. But she wanted to tell Jack how deeply she loved him. That she would die if he were to leave her now.

 

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The Devil and the Rose- 10

Jack’s gone and Linda entered Rose’s bedroom and saw her lying face down.

‘Hey beautiful, happy b… Rose… Are you crying? What’s the matter?’

She turned her face up and saw the slap mark. Linda went ballistic instantly, ‘It’s your birthday today, for crying out loud. And look what present you got. And these’, She points at roses on the ground, ‘I can tell the story just by looking at them. Peter gave these to you and that Jack crushed them. Correct me if I am wrong.’

She sat on the bed beside her and yelled, ‘On your birthday!’

……………………………………

The day following Rose’s birthday, sitting in his rocking chair staring at the ceiling, Peter was still musing over Rose’s coldness the day before.

‘O Rose! Must you be so cruel to me? Do you not want to be happy, to be loved? The more I want you, the more you… seem to… to get away from me. My life is so… empty without you. When you are not around, it’s like…nobody’s home…’

‘That Jack…’ He sounded angry and got up from the chair, his eyes red with resolve. Something had been building up in him for months, and apparently it all came to a head now.

Peter’s entered the room. Linda was already there. She didn’t appear very happy.

‘Hey Linda, I thought Jack was going to be here.’

‘Jack’s gone, Peter. For good.’

‘Gone? For good? Gone where?’

‘They didn’t tell me anything.’

‘They?’ Peter’s heart skipped a beat.

‘Rose has gone with him…’

‘What…? Rose… Why…? Why…? ….Why…?  …Why…?’

 

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