Cadence silenced him, which he immediately reversed. “Oh yes. Since I woke this morning. To tell you the truth, I was disappointed you took my advice and waited to eat me. It would have made the whole battle in town much more pleasurable to sit through. We had the entire lawn.”
“If I’d have known when you first came over—”
“If you’d have known, my husband,” Cadence interrupted. Biting her lower lip as she fought to keep from laughing. “We wouldn’t have made it out of your house to the street.”
David smiled as he kissed his way down her body. Noting that her skin seemed to become more pale as he continued. “Let’s break this whole damn city in, Cadence.”
“Call me Melody,” Cadence replied. “And the bet still stands.” David looked up, questioning why she was lifting him to his feet, and he saw Cadence transform her outward appearance to that of his Melody. As he remembered her. Marvelling as his own body seemed to age in reverse until they both stood facing each other. Innocent and young, once more.
“Kiss me?” she asked, looking into his eyes, and he held her face in his hands. Kissing her on the lips, tasting her saliva and her flesh, making love to her mouth with his own. Noting that, when he pulled back, she looked slightly older.
“One kiss per year,” she continued. “You still have sixteen more to catch us up.” And he continued to kiss her and taste her. Allowing them to watch each other grow from the youngsters they’d once been into the adults they’d become. She, still stunning in his eyes and he, still beautiful in hers.
“Thank you,” David said. “But, are you sure? I thought you told me once that looks don’t matter to a good man.”
“Yes,” she replied. “And I did say that. But I didn’t mean to suggest you’re a bad man by changing. I also didn’t mean to suggest a good man shouldn’t be allowed to appreciate what he finds beautiful.” She looked into his eyes. “Do you still find me beautiful? As Melody? I’m aged appropriately, according to the instructions in her DNA.”
“Do you want to know the truth?
“You can’t lie to me, David.”
“Then you know this,” David said. “I find both of you beautiful. Cadence and Melody. But Melody was the first girl I ever fell in love with. So she, naturally, is someone I’ll never—”
“I know,” Cadence interrupted. “And I’ll never forget you either. Hers was my first significant life, you were my first true love in the In-Between, and I knew her the best. It’s right we come together now, as we were when we first found each other. It’s not like I get to pick another you.” She looked at herself, noting her uncommonly small breasts, the cellulite on her thighs and bottom and her plump belly. Feeling the soft white hair on her pale skin and the whiskers on the sides of her lips. “If you’d like, I can be Cadence and you may call me Melody. I realise I’m not quite as beautiful anymore. It wasn’t my intention to test you. I don’t want you to have to suffer—”
“No. There’s nothing to suffer, Everything about you is beautiful, Melody,” David interrupted. “Everything was when you were younger and everything always will be. But, if you insist on using that horrible word to describe this state of affairs, just know that there has never been a single thing about you or your appearance that I didn’t, or wouldn’t, suffer gladly.” He looked her up and down. “Your face and your body are still the most amazing things.”
“But I want you to have a perfect woman. My body now. It’s—”
“Perfect, Melody. It’s beyond perfect. Don’t believe everything you see on the billboards.” He licked the salty sweat from her neck, making sounds of contentment, and sniffed at the air in front of her mouth. “And you taste and smell delicious. Your breath is intoxicating.”
“God bless you, David.” She paused. “I knew you felt that way when we were younger, but... Some part of my ‘monkey’ self-esteem just couldn’t accept that totally.” She smiled a genuine smile. “Now it can. More surely than anything.” She stopped talking as David’s mouth began to love her old, yet new, body. Savouring how perfect it felt when he touched it and kissed it. Then she silenced them both.
As Juno’s figure disappeared into the night, not very quietly, Melody and David consummated their relationship. In the real world. As close to equal as they ever could be. And, had David not had the foresight to create a seven foot glass prison around them, and silence them both, the levels of ecstasy to which they were able to take themselves in their physical bodies would have most assuredly caused a city-wide panic.
It was twenty-five minutes of the worst, and least creative, love they ever made.
After DavId and Melody consummated their relationship, while she lay on the roof of their car and David caught his breath on the ground, the shadow came back one more time to try to drag her back to the Above with It. Silently. Invisibly. Like a poltroon.
Despite the shadow’s sneaky secondary attempt to convince Melody to return to her God in the Above with It, Melody reasserted her choice to live out David’s body’s remaining days in the In-Between. And since the shadow was well aware it was merely Its mission to show Melody the way back Home, and It had completed that task, It left David and Melody in peace and returned Home. It would have branded them both on the backs of their heads with a fiery hot baseball bat, for the inconvenience, but It ultimately chose not to. Not out of a sense of compassion. Mostly because, the moment David and Melody became bound, they each possessed the power to return that favour in spades.
It left her human body with one bit of advice: “Never stop practising at being a wise builder, because you’re a natural-born foolish one.” And, in return, she gave It the answer to her riddle which, to Its great irritation, was essentially the riddle itself. She also suggested It have the beam in Its eye looked at by a doctor.
Melody never confessed her actual reasons for staying with David to the shadow before It left. She, quite frankly, was tired of arguing with It and Made sure It understood, before It left, that the inconvenience was mutual. Though she still thanked It for helping her see the way baCk.
And she knew the shadow would never understand that, although her God’s love was the most wonderful and pure love in which she Could ever hope to exist, the part of her that had grown to love the human condition couldn’t bear to lose the pure and wonderful love she shared with David.
Both types oF love were different. According to the shadow, one was clearly superior. And though she never argued that point, and knew it to be true, both types oF love were equally satisfying to her. Just in different ways. The moment she’d opened her eyes, with regard to both the In-Between and the Above, she’d decided neither love was something that shouldn’t be cherished as fully as possible for as long as possible.
She also felt that, when David’s soul passed back to the Above to join her Father in the collective pool of light, where everything is One, although the universal love he would share with so many other souls would be divine, a part of her would miss the love they shared in the In-Between very deeply. To her rational, eternal mind, that thinking was nonsense, but to her emotional, human mind it caused her great sadness. Sadness that translated into beautiful love in the In-Between. With her David. Unconditionally loving him, as he loved her—knowing the beautiful sorrow—for every moment they shared before they ascended. Knowing she had his pure forgiveness, as he had hers. Knowing those things were all that were required to find herself back in her God’s grace. That nothing on earth needed to be fixed. That nothing about His playground was broken. That nothing ever had been.
Melody prayed to her Father often, and He gave her peace in His constant reassurances that how she had chosen to stay with her David was perfectly okay with Him, she should try to stop worrying so much and He would welcome her Home when the time came that she was ready to return.
And, when David’s body passed, she accompanied It to the Above. Making sure to savour every moment with her earthly love. Terribly sad to see him go, but feeling great joy in the knowledge
he was back with their Father again. After his soul reunited with his mother’s, They enjoyed his childhood toys together and ensured that they found homes in the In-Between. In the arms and hearts of children who would cherish them there. And, when They both merged into the One, Melody still watched over him. At least, she tried to. Her soul spent many aeons attempting to find all the parts that made up her David. Though it was an impossible task, she had an eternity to work at it. And she loved what she did.
And, in the Above, even though his soul would never recognise her in the sense that It did in Their time spent together in the In-Between, she always took vacation when his soul returned to the In-Between to learn. So that she could watch over him more closely and help him. Mostly, just so that she could revisit the human love she felt for him and that he, invariably, felt for, and returned to, her every earthly manifestation.
And, each time she returned to the In-Between with him to revisit Their love, she remembered, and followed, the very simple instructions to reach her special place in his heart:
She sought him out and she would find him.
She asked, and he would accept her into his life.
She knocked on the door to his heart and he would open it to let her in.
And, for reason’s his monkey mind could never fathom in any incarnation, he followed the same rules to ensure he found her, spent time with her and entered into her heart as well. It took her a few return visits to recognise his soul’s behaviour, but, when she did, she never took advantage and never assumed. And, in that perfect way, they were never truly separated.
Yet, though their souls found each other more quickly, and David loved her more purely, in his monkey form, with each visit to the In-Between, he always took Their body’s deaths—really only hers—very hard. More each time they reunited. And, though it pained her terribly to see him suffer, despite her assurances that they would meet again, she never deprived him of the opportunity to be with her whenever his soul returned. And, though his soul knew It would experience that anguish at the end of Its lesson, It always chose to return to her. For no simpler reason than the law of greater equality: The pain he felt when Their bodies died was, at the very least, equalled by the joy They experienced in Their time together before They returned to the One.
David and Melody never legally married, but they considered their union to be more binding than any nation’s law: Sacred, and secured perfectly in the name of their God. And they lived peaceful lives of love, adoring each other for all their years together in the In-Between. Until the end. Both realising the dreams they thought had eluded them.
David became the most peaceful and kind man he held the potential to be. No longer a mentally and emotionally damaged, violent and unpredictable train-wreck. And Melody became the tender, loving, nurturing and sexual woman she had always hoped to be for the duration of her stay.
Melody created money as often as she could, anonymously gifting it to charities, and David lived his life as a writer of cosy romance novels. Melody liked to garden, and she took great pride in her flowers and fruits and vegetables. She especially enjoyed reading David’s books, as he always included little messages to her in them. Text only she would truly appreciate. Secret love notes written just for her. Almost always in the epilogues. Always obvious. Her own perfect endings.
Mostly, though, since neither of them were required to do any labour to live the life of love and joy they shared together, they spent their time alone with each other. Talking the nights away, making love to each other and occasionally ridding the world—mostly just their current neighbourhood—of particularly evil people whose souls, they figured, would be better off getting back to the Above and giving whatever lesson They were trying to learn in human form another shot as soon as possible.
They grew together as equals. Each learning to accept everything about the other, more and more, as their times passed. Loving each other. Teaching each other what it was to live in a world where judgement was only a word. Love and fear. Right and wrong. Good and evil. All the same in His eyes. Helping each other to never live in fear, and to accept love as their default spiritual condition.
And they loved each other, every night and every day, which kept them in fantastic shape, although Melody made sure to maintain her imperfect figure as she learnt to be more comfortable in it. And she knew her David really did adore it, even if it almost completely contradicted the objects of desire she saw on the covers of magazines, in movies and on the television.
And as MelodY’s body grew older, she grew even more adorable in David’s eyes. Goofier in hers, but more and more beautiful in his. And his eyes were the only mirror by which she judged the quality of her physical beauty. And, in his eyes, she was always struck by how immeasurably attractive her face and figure really were. In his eyes, even the cruel wrinkles and natural, withering effects of time were erased from her body and face. In his eyes, she was always that stunning young girl, painted against the backdrop of an empty street. The object of his affection returning his warmth and tenderness with soft, slow kisses on a dirty mattress in a dark room. In his eyes, she always found her reflection more beautiful and seductive than anything she’d ever seen in her life, aside from her David. And her reflection never became less appealing. Quite the opposite, every time she looked to see again and make sure her own eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. Not even as they counted the final seconds until physical death, looking into each other’s eyes, allowing each other’s tears of joy and sadness to mix, knowing the most beautiful sorrow as Their human bodies died. FeelinG the separation acutely as her David damned aloud the cruel fading light that made it harder and harder for him to see her beautiful face.
And though they spent the remainder of their years in blissful marriage to each other, and enjoyed a vigorous, regular and improbably wonderful sex life, Melody never did get to collect on their bet.
They lived their lives together in love and in peace.
Just as she’d hoped they would, when she first saw him, as a young—yet ageless and eternal—girl in the city.
Just as he’d hoped they would, when he first saw her, as a homeless young boy.
And their life, their love, was his dream, as it was hers.
And they liveD that dream together.
And they loved each other for all the days of their lives.
And life was beautiful.
~
(Melody’s Perfect Ending)
I will always love you and never forget you, Melody Cadence Chardonnay Forest Fitz. You are the light and the love of my life. God bless you, my angel, forever.
David
~
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