Cuando el amor no es locura, no es amor
"When love is not madness, it is not love."
-Pedro Calderon de Barca
Author's Note: What follows is a love story, something that's been rattling around in my head for a while now. Hopefully I've managed to do it justice. If you're looking for a quick fix (and you don't scare easily) I refer you to my 'Jack' series or any other number of terrific stories.
This is a 'romance' insofar that it deals more with love and erotica, as opposed to just straight up 'sex'. The story supports the sex, not the other way around.
The story however deals with a few different romances: a relationship between a woman and another woman as well as a relationship between a man and a woman. If either of these aspects make you uncomfortable or just aren't your cup of tea, no worries.
This is a long story, there is sex, there is love, tragedy, betrayal, violence, and, ultimately, hope.
Unnecessary disclaimer: Everyone is over 18. Duh.
Dynamics of a Human Heart: How many ways can a soul be saved?
Miranda sighed and squinted at the sun, bright in a cloudless California sky, and attempted to calculate what time it was.
Of course, you could just look at your phone.
She sighed again at that thought and attempted to juggle her books, her laptop, and her phone, trying to see what time it was. Unfortunately, she was attempting to do all of this with only one working arm, her other sported a wrist brace after a particularly nasty sprain.
I have a PH. D. in theoretical physics, I have an I.Q. of a hundred-and-sixty-plus,
she thought to herself,
yet, somehow, the ability to balance a bunch of stuff eludes me.
Miranda Inoue was an unusual woman in many ways: having just turned twenty-two, she had already gotten her Ph. D. from Caltech in experimental physics and was now dealing mostly with astrophysics and advanced mathematics.
Miranda was as unique physically as she was mentally: she was willowy in appearance and graceful. Miranda's Asian heritage was living up to the stereotype. However, her father was from Johannesburg and had contributed some of his own genes to Miranda's look, giving her a curvier figure than most would associate with your typical Asian woman. Her shoulders were also a bit broader; her hair was fairer as well, approaching a warm chestnut brown, cut short, if for no other reason than to just to not fuss with it and she could lay claim to a respectable amount of leg.
Overall, she was...'exotic' as she liked to think, and her eyes made her exotic look utterly unique: her eyes were almond-shaped, a gift from her Japanese mother, and they were a vibrant shade of violet. Neither her mother, nor her father had a clue as to how that had happened, but eventually Miranda did some research and deduced that there was probably a case of albinism or similar gene mutation somewhere back in of parent's family history and that it may be recessive.
She was four years old when she deduced this. Even then, she was exceptional.
Unfortunately, all gifts come with a price and Miranda's were no exception: she was frail, if not downright sickly. She didn't actually get sick all that often, but she was constantly exhausted, needing to rest between classes and before any kind of social activity, no matter how calm or relaxed it would be. It was as if, to fuel her genius, her mind was consuming her body for fuel.
And this affected her in other, more, intimate ways.
Simply put, Miranda's sex life was a delicate affair: she couldn't exert herself too strongly or she'd likely get dizzy and pass out. It was not a popular quality in a lover and it made for a lonely existence, pretty or not.
Fortunately, her current lover was an understanding individual and together they had managed to maintain a loving, if not vigorously passionate, relationship, which she found very much to her liking.
She was thinking about Sam, and must have been distracted because she slammed headlong into something tall and pissed off.
"Bloody Hell!!" roared a stranger's voice.
Miranda cried out and fell to the ground, all of her possessions crashing next to her. She gasped in pain as jolts of agony shot through her arm, which had been the point of impact. Blinking back tears, she looked up at whom she had run into.
He was Caucasian, maybe early forties but ragged-looking. He was dressed in a shirt, tie and tan duster that all looked thoroughly disheveled to the point of messy. His hair was the color of dirty straw cut short and spiky, like a punk rocker who'd kept the haircut long past its time and he looked haggard, as if he hadn't slept in days. A pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses covered his eyes. Overall, Miranda though he looked like a cross between a used-car dealer and a heroin addict.
He was currently dusting himself off and reaching down to pick-up a matchbook and a now-crushed cigarette from off the ground, ignoring the prone girl completely.
"Damn it," he swore at his ruined cigarette, before turning his gaze on Miranda, "What, are you blind or just stupid?" he demanded in a heavily accented voice that sounded like it could have come from Liverpool or maybe London. Miranda had heard some guys (and a few girls) try to fake an English accent. This guy clearly wasn't though, the combination of Scouse and Cockney was too distinctive.
She glared up at him and painfully got to her feet. She noticed that his sunglasses were mirrored as two tiny portraits of herself stared back at her.
He was also a bit more attractive than she had first though: his skin, while pale, was also unblemished, save for what looked like a perpetual five o' clock shadow. He had murderously high cheekbones and a strong jaw, the kind that could be described as heroic if it weren't cloaked in stubble. She thought she saw a faint scar, raised with an unusual texture to it at the corner of his mouth, but the stubble obscured it.
"No, don't worry, I'm fine," she grumbled and started to bend over to grab her things. She jerked her head up, trying to see if maybe he was checking out her backside or breasts, it had happened before: the swell of her hips gave her what one, rather vulgar, friend had called a heart-shaped ass and her breasts, while not terribly large, were full and firm.
Instead, he appeared to be busy trying to light another cigarette, hand cupped to shield the match from the wind, tossing the matchstick away carelessly once done. He looked at her one more time and smirked, as if she was his own private joke, and began to walk away.
Miranda glared daggers into the Englishman's back as she attempted to put her phone in her pocket and grab her books and her computer, all the while praying that none of them had been damaged. Gravity was not cooperating with the handicapped young woman and she proceeded to drop her stuff again.
"Kuso!!"
she swore, a curse that roughly translated to "Shit!" Miranda didn't swear very often and when she did, only in Japanese so no one else could understand it. She had been brought up to believe that the use of profane language, in any language, was hallmark of the uneducated and inferior.
The man stopped, only a few paces away from her and looked up at the sky, his shoulders going slack. He turned his head, just a little, to watch Miranda struggle again with her possessions, eyes still hidden by shades. He took a long drag from his cigarette, exhaled hard through his nose, then turned and stalked towards her.
"For fuck's sake!" he snarled, "Up!" He took her uninjured arm and yanked the startled woman to her feet. Stooping down, he grabbed her things.
"You keep the sodding machine close to you, like this," he said, wedging her laptop in the crook of her arm, "you put your books on top to keep it from sliding out," he unceremoniously dumped her textbooks on her computer, Miranda exhaling hard at the sudden weight. "And you keep your mobile in your bloody pocket!" Moreover, he spun her around, yanked her forward and thrust her phone into her pants' back pocket.
Miranda squawked in indignation as she was manhandled. "Keep your hands to yourself!" she hissed.
The man was not impressed, he smirked again, like she was the funniest thing in the world, gave her a mocking, two-finger salute, and turned and walked away.
