“It’s not polite to stare.” I said, taking off my glasses and placing them on the vanity table.
“I couldn’t decide,” the voice sighed, “should I stare at the wretched sagging skin around your arms, or the wrinkles on your face?”
“It would take me to turn around for you to admire the lines you’ve given me.”
The creature sulked out of the shadows, flicking on the walls like a shadow. I turned to watch them, enjoying the way they resembled flames, dancing and twisting till it seeped into the mirror before me. I watched my reflection darken and twist until a handsome face appeared. Raven hair danced as though underwater and the frown hid the dimple I knew graced his chin.
“I thought furthering your age from ‘old’ to ‘ancient’ would make you beg me to end it. But here you are, dressing in pearls and dating?!”
I smiled, fingering the pearls Aaron had given me. “Love knows no age too old.”
The Spector lit the mirror ablaze, his face turning liquid gold, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! I stopped you from dying, from reaching heaven – something you have wanted since you were a child. WHY DO YOU NOT BEG?!”
I reached behind my head, unclasping the pearls and allowing them to drop to the table. “Because,” I took a deep breath and sang in an aged voice, “big girls don’t cry.”
The mirror began to light up, flames licking around the edges. “You are DRIVING me mad!”
“Quite an accomplishment. If I wasn’t retired it would go well on my resume.”
The creature leaked out of the mirror to pool on the floor. It rose and became the fetching man I had met thousands of years ago. He pulled his hands out of suit pockets, arms out beseechingly, “Your bones ache, your body cracks under the passage of time. You should be dust but by my hand. You are in pain. Tell me to end it.”
“That sounds like you’re begging me, my friend.”
He crossed him arms, “I’m offering you a way out.”
“What would I tell Aaron?” I mused, “he has been an attentive lover.” I watched with glee as he visually shuddered. “not a pretty image?”
He grimaced, “I would apologise – but you said that on purpose.”
I giggled, an oddly youthful response, “true, my dear.”
“I come back every twenty years,” he droned on, “and every time you treat me as a great joke, as though I don’t hold your little life in my hands. As though you – ”
“Weren’t suffering? Well, I’m not. I take joy from every moment. If I am stiff, I enjoy the moment I am found in. If I am tired, I rest in dreams. I have company, I have wine, I have faith, I have love.”
He gripped his head in his hands and physically pulled it off, sending it spiralling off towards the ceiling and back down again.
“Letting out some steam?” I asked innocently.
The head landed heavily onto his body, the neck turning to reveal the raging red eyes glaring down at me. I was once, long ago, terrified of this reaction. But now it seemed like a child throwing a tantrum. At first he was charming, alluring. He was witty and willing to joke about my oncoming age. But the older I got, and the less I seemed to care and the more it burnt away any swagger he had had. Then he tried to be convincing, argumentative and demanding. He was, however, always very theatrical.
“I am old,” I sighed, moving over to the little electric kettle by my bed, “I no longer seem to scare as easily. Tea?”
He lifted his hands up in rage, his hair turning to flame. Then he quietened, shaking his head slowly from side to side and turning to launch himself into in one of my armchairs, “sure, black like my soul.”
I looked, watching him lounge like a black cat. He caught my smile just as he uncomfortably added, “two sugars.”
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