THE JEWELER

It was a titanium band with a small jadestone set into it.  Diane marveled at the object.  Her heart pounded behind her ribs for how much she wanted it.  She could afford a seventeen hundred dollar ring, but she could not bring herself to buy it.  That wasn't how she wanted it.
     Not at all.
     The jeweler turned away for just a single frame of time, giving her just enough of the moment to lift the ring from its dark, blue velvet display pad and push it against her palm with her middle finger.
     She thanked the jeweler, and walked out the door without so much as an eyebrow raised in her direction.
     She mulled over the encounter as she walked away from the diamond district.
     She’d never stolen anything before.
     Would she be caught?  The observance of her sublime theft caught on camera, destined to make its way to the next FOX Network special, When Good People Go Bad?  Her adrenaline was so violent in her veins, she could not find her center, her mind continued to buzz.  Most of her wanted to bring it back and just apologize, but here, already, she’d done it.  Was there a thing left to be undone?  That would be seen, or that would remain dark until the facts came to hunt her down, which was the inevitable nature of truth.
     Christ, what am I going to tell Jim?
     That was an easy answer.
     She wouldn't tell Jim.
     How does one tell one's spouse they've graduated from law-abiding citizen to arch-thief in the blink of an eye?
     Something about the encounter, though.
     She couldn't nick it.  It would not lock in.  Something so... synchronous about the moment, the way the jeweler's eyes did not leave hers as he bent down to pull the velvet display pad out of the thick glass, thick chrome case, this... box filled with at least five-hundred thousand dollars of assorted chunks of Earth and reconfigured slag.
     The jeweler was an old man, a dandy from his thin, well-creased black slacks, up to the silk, soft-patterned white ascot.  A creature from a forgotten age who told her, before she even knew, "I know exactly what you want."
     "How could you know that?"
     "Here, come see," he told her, and he lowered himself toward the lock, inserted the key in a manner of grace that comes only with having done a thing a thousand times before.  He did not need to search for her destined prize.  The pad was on the second of three shelves, and that white-hot band, that gorgeous green rock... it was the first thing her eye locked on.  When his fingers moved to pluck it from the little groove into which the ring was set... well, her heart went all skippy.
     "It is beautiful."
     "There is not another like it in the world."
     "Why do you have it set among your stock, then?"
     "To my mind, beauty doesn't stand on its own.  Beauty has to stand with the mundane for a true light to shine."  His head tilted as he smiled.
     She could not look away from the ring.  Her blouse fluttered in the well of her breast from the thud of her heart.  Her mind recycled the phrase I want it.
     Then his back was to her, and she was out the door with the ring, like cold fire, burning in her palm.
     You're not going to get away with this, Diane.
     Shut up, Jim.
     It didn't matter what she’d done.  Seventeen hundred dollars was spit in the jeweler's insurance well.  The only conflict that remained was her guilt, and, for this ring, she bore none.
     She would continue to hammer that idea into her head until it became true.
     And that is why she would not tell Jim.
#
Jim left a message telling Diane to meet him and his business partners at Elaine's, nine o'clock.  She fiddled with the ring while she played back his message, rubbing it round and round her finger.  She wondered how many women like her had ever worn this piece?  How many trophy wives were presented this beauty by their husband?  How many times had this ring been on the finger of a woman who lay below a savage man?
     She had time yet to bathe, and she ran the hot water in the tub.  She was bored with her home.  There was so much she wanted to do, but she'd, long ago, given up trying to get Jim to listen.  He didn't want his home to be alive, it was a showcase for his bank-account.  Nothing went on a wall or shelf without express permission from Jim's decorator.
     She tried not to think like this.  Her’s was a good life.  Jim loved her, in his way, and he was a sound, if not selfish, lover.  Theirs was a marriage of... conditions.  She was provided a life, and he was provided a wife.  A beautiful woman, Diane was, and she worked hard at forty to keep the years away.  She had no problem discussing her age, were Jim to allow her to be perceived as any more than thirty-five.  She was proud, became quite the painter in the past few years... of course, Jim bought her a studio so she wouldn't get paint on the floor.
     And she didn't just paint anymore.  The studio inspired her.  At first, she just dealt with small canvas, but soon she was doing giant things, almost twenty feet side to side in some cases.  Other arenas too, she decided sculpting was something she'd like to try.  Sometimes, in the summer, she worked naked, turned off the air conditioning so that New York sun would bake her between her old, brick walls, get her oils to run down the canvas.  She loved the summer.
     Jim hated it, so he went skiing.  Sometimes she went with him.  Sometimes she didn't.  As much as he demanded of her, he gave her a lot of freedom.  She tried to remember that.  She just tired of what it was like with him... he was cold to her.  She was nothing more than an ornament, and she wanted more.  In the past year or so, she had this recurrent dream--a dark shape pushed her to her bed, fucked her like a feral child at the throat of its prey, the whole time gasping, thick, soft voice, hot breath on her ear, "I love you, Diane.  I love you."
     God, it was her favorite dream.
     Her bath was almost full.  She couldn't wait to slip into the water, now.  She caught herself rubbing her shaved mound.  She liked the scratch of her nails against her textured flesh.
     She undressed, slipped into the water.  She closed her eyes and submerged, sat up, pushed her hair back from her head, lay back, let her hand wander.
     When the ring brushed her clitoris, her body rippled with spasm.  She made audible noise, like if she'd a limb ripped off, and could feel her come float and web about her fingers in the water.  Her entire body tingled, and her eyes were wide, like a fish, her breathing not so dissimilar, either... big, wheezing gasps.  She had orgasms.  She was capable.  This was something different.  All she could think about was her cunt.  She was almost afraid to touch herself anymore, she kept her hands on the sides of the tub... wheeze, gasp.  The way her body trembled, she was uncertain she could walk.
     She did not understand.
     Her pause did not make her calm, and/or sedate.  Her heart beat faster.  Her fingers tensed against the bathtub's edges.  A voice in her head she was uncertain was her own.... "Fuck me," was it's suggestion.
#
She barely made it to dinner on time.
     Three minutes to nine, merciful gods.
     She walked into the restaurant with her back so straight.  Emil was here.  Fifteen years ago, Emil hosted their wedding reception in his fine bistro, now he was part-owner.
     "Bella, how are you Misses Shane?  You look wonderful tonight!  Your hair is so free.  You are like the goddess!"
     "You make me blush," she warned.  "Is Jim here?"
     "Oh, yes.  Right this way."
     He led her to their table.  Two men and a young woman sat across from two empty seats.
     "Hello, you must be Mister Park.  I'm Diane Shane, Jim's wife."
     "Hello!  Glad you made it.  Jim's on the phone to you right now."
     Shit.
     "I'm sorry, I'm late."  Emil pulled out her chair.  "I was caught up.  Jim should know better."
     Mister Park was a husky fellow, wind-shorn gray, dark suit symptomatic of the realms of advertising--client-side, not creative.  The man next to him was thinner, younger, and cursed with beastly, dark eyes.  A savage loomed below the hairplugs.  "I'm Bill Steele."
     Of course you are.
     "Very pleased to meet you."
     Next to him, a waif.  Barely dressed, barely pubescent, all of twenty-five if Diane were generous.  And this young, nubile, waterfall of tit-flesh was set next to Diane's husband.
     "I'm Kiki."
     Of course you are.
     "Kiki's a friend of mine from out of town," Bill covered.
     "Welcome to New York."  Diane did not press, because she didn't want to embarrass the girl.  It was clear she was new to her role as a hooker.
     I should give her some tips.
     "Diane."
     Her husband's voice startled her.
     "Hello, baby!"  She turned her cheek out to him.
     "Let's go talk for a moment, you and I."
     "May I look at the menu first?"
     "No."
     She lowered her head.
     This much she could give him.  The man had some immediate questions, she could provide him with short-term answers.  This was not a problem.
     Jim, in all his keenness, pulled her chair out for her as she stood.
     "Outside," he commanded.
     She began to walk, she heard him tell the other men, "I'm sorry about this.  I'll just be a moment."
     Diane could feel the looks on her.  Every eye in the house watched Old Yeller as she was brought out to the barn.  The blast would come from her husband's mouth, and, though, never in their years together had he yelled at her, she’d heard him yell.  Jim’s decorator was in therapy because of Mister Shane.
     He began his interrogation before they got to Emil's lectern.  "You're late, Diane, and you look like shit."
     She didn't look like shit.
     She wouldn't have done that to him.
     She only looked... different.
     She hadn't done much with her hair, she liked how it looked kind of scraggled, well-fucked.  She then threw on the Versace, loved the simmering, metallic black as it showed off her little tits, decided she looked like a five thousand dollar whore, and that's pretty much what she was to him anyhow.  So, she would go out like this, sex-kitten, and put Big Jim in his final, fucking place.  If it meant divorce, so be it.
     "Have you been drinking?"
     "No, darling.  Masturbating," she told him, and moved past him toward the door.
     She wasn't ready for him when he grabbed her arm... right there, in front of all these people, his thundering yell.
     "What did you say to me, Diane?"
     And she, just as loud: "I said I was masturbating, you son of a bitch!"
     Then he punched her.
     She felt her jaw crack at the hinge.
     She knew Jim thought he didn't know her anymore, but she had no idea he harbored this kind of rage over their marriage.
     He picked her up off the floor, and they stumbled into a dinner cart.  Small cakes, chocolate, ice-cream, and coffee, a melange from which Jim picked out the silver trowel with which their dessert would have been served.  His left hand was at her throat.
     The spade plunged into Diane's side, scraped between her ribs, over, and over again.  It was done before her heart beat four more times--the last four times she'd be in a circulatory rhythm--then the wait-staff pulled Jim off his wife.  Diane felt the erratic pump of blood from her chest.  A spurt crossed her lips.
     She was surprised to see the jeweler there, suddenly, like he'd followed her around all day long, like he knew just how she'd wind up... the jeweler, the goddamned jeweler dandy who allowed her to steal that gorgeous ring.
     The jeweler leaned over her, took her hand in his.  His ancient and gentle eyes met her black, widening pupils.  He touched the stolen ring with his fingers.  He touched the side of her face with his old, soft fingertips.
     "Was this what you wanted?"
     Blood poured from the edge of her mouth.  She would die.  Her breath gurgled as she inhaled.  She tried to raise an arm to touch his face as well, but her life was to be absorbed into the restaurant carpet at her back.  Sleep began to soothe her, and she did, indeed, know the answer to his question, so... so she told him.  She fought to keep her focus on the man, and she then told him, "yes."

© 2001 by Mark J. Euringer