Precious

So I went in an estate jewelry store today. I knew I couldn't buy anything, so there was no danger in me looking.

And then I saw it -- it whispered to me from its velvet-lined box.

It sparkled from across the room, its soft siren voice asking me to come closer, to be nearer, to come and see...
It lay nestled in soft black silk velvet, its box tilted open. As I came nearer, I felt my heartbeat quicken.

I stood before it. I looked down at it. And when I saw, I wanted to wear. I wanted it. I wanted to possess it, to have it, for it to be MINE. I could not remember wanting anything in my life as badly as I wanted it at that moment.

My desire ran on a knife's edge.
I exhaled slightly. My mouth felt dry. I bit my lip.

In an instant, I recognized it as my precious. I knew it because the thought that ran through my head with wild passion was, I would sell my soul to have this.

And then I thought, well... maybe not sell it as such. Maybe mortgaging it at a reasonable rate. On a non-recourse loan. After my lawyers have read it.

I asked to try it on.

As the saleswoman opened the clasp, I knew it was too small. This tiny Victorian beauty was made for wrists smaller than mine. She slipped it onto my wrist and closed the clasp. It fit perfectly. It was light and sparkling. They were stars of diamonds. My constellation... my perfect tiara I had searched so long to find wasn't a tiara at all. The perfection I had sought was here, now -- it was real, now. It was bright dizzy delight of champagne and sensual earthy pleasure and it belonged here, now, with me.

It was so right. It was the inherent rightness that makes you think, "this is so right."

There was never any question that I had to give it back. At the same time, it was almost painful having to admit to myself that I had to take it off. It was like something that had come out of a blissful golden afternoon, stayed through the jasmine-scented night and --

gone.

It was not mine. It felt like heartbreak, that it could not be mine. This beauty, this delicate sparkling beauty, that I would adore -- that I would love as much as a person can love something so cold. It felt like having come home, only to be asked to leave again.

My beautiful bracelet.

Maybe in another life...