Page 17 of Adam & Eve

announcement was made, a few of my students wanted invites. I couldn’t invite everyone, and I

couldn’t pick and choose.

I organized a contest of sorts for my English Lit students. The class with the best research

papers on obsessive love in gothic literature would be invited to my wedding. Eve’s class would

win of course. It would allow me time to interact with her outside of classes. What happened that

day would cause my curiosity for her to cross the line.

On my wedding day, instead of being focused on my bride, I watched and waited for Eve to

enter the church. I didn’t care about the harpist or the fact that everything was beautifully

decorated in white. I didn’t even care about how good Jenny looked in her fifty-thousand-dollar

dress. I searched for Eve and was beyond disappointed that she hadn’t shown up.

An hour into my reception, I was incensed. Why hadn’t she come? I stood up to leave, and

that was when I saw her. She was out on the dance floor. There had to be a hundred people

crowded around, but my eyes easily zeroed in on her. She stood out in a black wrap dress that

hugged her curves and stopped mid-thigh. The black pumps she wore elongated her thick, shapely

legs. She was smiling and dancing to the classical music like she’d been trained to do so.

Her body swayed sensually. Her spirit called to me. Mesmerized, I couldn’t have stopped

watching her if I’d wanted to. Then suddenly her haunting eyes connected with mine. She blessed

me with a warm, bright, rare smile. The first she’d ever directed at me. She’d killed and revived me

with that simple gesture.

A quote from her report on Jane Eyre came to mind: “I have little left in myself -- I must

have you. The world may laugh -- may call me absurd, selfish -- but it does not signify. My very

soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.”

At that very moment, I felt my world shift. I wanted her more than I wanted my next breath.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to live without her. If she’d have promised to look at me, smile at me,

stay with me forever, I would have given it all up. My birthright, the money, the cars, the women,

my very being.

Sadly, I knew I had to walked away. I couldn’t have her, yet. She wasn’t ready for me. I

wouldn’t force myself into her life because I’d stain and break her. Men like me dirtied pretty

things like her. She’d end up like one of the women I despised. She was too young, too pure. She

needed to live, to experience and to find herself before I exposed her to me. I wanted her so badly.