Often when I write, I struggle to find the perfect image of a character in my mind. Once in a while, I'm already partly into the beginning of a tale when I stumble upon an image that makes me sit back and grin, knowing that I've found the character. Once I have that, I keep that image open in a window as I write so that I can refer to it and pick out details and qualities about them.
I had to re-write some of this because the female lead was of mostly Caucasian background originally. She would have worked well, but I found a shot that nailed me to my chair and I knew that I had to make changes to accommodate her. I had her backstory in a flash and even a name from that, once I'd made up the backstory. I needed somebody who would appeal to the male lead in a very powerful way in one instant. I hope you enjoy this.
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The little brass chime sang its note as the door opened and Farah glanced up from the onerous task of checking the largest of her monthly shipments against the bill. She looked and was at least a little thankful that the person there was not one of the kids from the high school. One could expect most semi-interested adults to be able to keep themselves amused for a minute or two as they browsed. It wasn't fair, but you had to watch the teenagers a lot more. It was a bit too early for them anyway. Mostly, she enjoyed the ones who stopped in during their lunch, and mostly they were good kids, but there were always the one or two with sticky fingers who needed watching.
They came for different reasons, most out of curiosity and a need to kill their lunch hour with their friends away from the school. Every week or so, one or two of them would ask how to learn "witchcraft". Some of the girls wanted to learn because of some romantic nonsense they carried in their heads and some of the boys wanted to learn because they hoped to find power and to summon ancient demons out of dusty legends for their own foolishness. It often amused her to ask them why. She always told those ones the same thing – that she sold books. Once in a while, one would ask her about herself and mostly she'd remind them gently that it wasn't polite to pry. And if the one who'd asked was really very earnest, with the shiny eyes that told her of an impulsive desire – the sort that one sees in young adults to pursue something only to drop it in favour of the next impulse to cross their minds, she might admit it and that happened very seldom, but she always told them that she didn't take students, she sold books.
It was a little sad to her, but none of them had yet told her that they wished to learn out of a desire to live a rather simple life based on a very old and natural religion. She thought that she might have a different answer then. She got back to work and plunged, reaching for the bottom of the box.
"I'll be with you in a minute," she called from where she stood with her head inside the large shipping carton. Bart didn't get enough from that to understand the words or the tone – but he understood what she'd meant when he heard it.
Bart looked around the shop with interest and his gaze settled on the business license framed on the wall. He couldn't know if the name there belonged to the woman he'd seen darkness, but he thought it was a nice name. He inhaled the scents of the many candles and flavors of incense offered for sale and found himself in front of a collection of books on witchcraft. There was another display which related specifically to Wicca and other forms from around the world. He looked from one to the other and smiled to himself. One was a little historical and the books were arranged a bit dryly as though in a library. The way that the other was laid out told him more, since some imagination and flair had been used. His eye was drawn to the display of figurines.
Finding the one book in the shipment that had been eluding her, she checked it off on the bill and stepped forward quietly. She didn't get many customers like this one, she thought.
He was six feet at the minimum, she thought, and maybe a bit taller, though he appeared to be put together extremely well. She almost chided herself for the way that her eyes darted to several places on the back of him, searching for details which weren't there beside the general shape and size of him. It was maybe just possible, she told herself dryly, for there to be other men in the world who looked like this – maybe even in this town. She rolled her eyes at her own foolishness. She was acting like some of the schoolgirls from the high school now.
Three nights to go, she told herself.
It had been days since she'd seen the one who'd watched her as she worshiped, the one who made her heart rate begin to approach the speed of a jackhammer on a New York City sidewalk on sight. She almost groaned, finding that thoughts of him had come to her unbidden – yet again.
For the hundredth time – this morning - she reminded herself that she'd put men as a category of interest to her into the trash bin years ago. Right beside the foolish notion that real love was possible for her – whatever the hell that might be outside of the romantic novels that she read occasionally.
Right beside the smoking remains of her heart.
Right beside the concept that sex was a natural form of expression between two human beings as opposed to her personal version of it. To her, sex was like a game of bridge.
Without a good partner, you needed to have a really good hand.
She shrugged to herself. Apparently wherever that trash bin was, there was no roadside pickup. But she had a thought then which brightened her thoughts. Maybe that was a good thing now. Other than the slightly hair-raising way that they'd met and seemed to be drawn to each other, it was looking like after all of this time after the crash and burn which had caused her to reach for the trash can in the first place; her poor heart still had some fire left in it. She looked at the man again.
His clothes were casual, but neat, and maybe a little upscale for the neighborhood. She placed him at no older than forty years old, but that was pushing it, since he could have been maybe thirty-two at a stretch from what she could see. She couldn't get a sense of his hair color because of the light but she liked the style of it. She only knew that it was dark. She felt that she ought to ask what he was interested in, but she found herself wanting to look at him for another few seconds first.
His hand reached for a book and he read a little, looking thoughtful and interested. She let him browse for a little longer and wondered why he was here. If there was a demographic for her business – other than the ones from the high school, he didn't really fit it. She wondered if he was here for something else.
Knowing the book that he held, she stepped forward, "That one is a good overview and introduction if you have an interest," she said pleasantly in her faintly accented tone, "but you won't find anything dramatic or sinister there if that is what you seek."
She was looking at him from the rear profile and the smile that she saw beginning was endearing, somehow. She thought that he must have been a real charmer as a young boy.
"I might have an interest," he said pleasantly, still facing away, "I always like to learn. I have a bit of a hungry mind sometimes. I don't need sinister, and there's more than enough drama outside of books for my taste."
Farah paused then, thinking that she knew the voice, or some quality of it, and wondered now if the feeling of mild alarm that came to her was justified.
He turned, thinking about her voice and how it seemed to draw him. But when they faced each other, any thought that he might have planned to voice about the sign in the window or the book in his hand left him and he stood immobile.
Though they were twenty feet apart, Farah wasn't faring much better. Her breath caught in her throat and she found herself torn between the attraction that she felt, and that sense of alarm as her mind searched for clues to where she might have met him before. She automatically discounted the cemetery.
It wasn't until she noticed the deep stillness which came from him that she knew – or thought that she did. Something like that was so uncommon. Not sure if he recognized her from those dark evenings, she decided to be a little evasive, though really, she felt a great deal of confusion. He had a nice face and heavens, he sure was pleasing to look at, she admitted. But he had the palest blue eyes that she'd ever seen in her life, an almost white-blue and they lent him something of a strange air, though he didn't seem to be trying to affect one.
To Farah, his gaze seemed piercing, though his face was completely relaxed and held an open, friendly, almost 'aw shucks' sort of expression which threatened to charm her on the spot.
Bart was a little stunned as he took in the long, reddish hair which hung far down in what looked to be natural ringlets to him, and her soft brown eyes held his gaze easily over her high cheekbones. Her high forehead and full lips spoke to him in memories of long ago. He was looking at a lovely woman in her early thirties, but he only knew that because of his occupation and natural ability to read people fairly well.
Many things came to him in an instant about her. The realization of it arrived as a shock. He could see well in the dark now, but not for details and subtleties such as these. The milk chocolate color of her skin spoke to him of women who had come to his home as part of tributes once from a land near the Red Sea, he just hadn't gotten everything that there was by the light of her small fire.
She wasn't thin, he decided, - and yet she was - and again, if he lacked his skill at watching people, he'd have guessed her to be one of those women who is always dieting while trying to keep her weight within a narrow range, keeping a hammer near the scale in case it thought to lie to her. Instead, he would have bet money on the spot that she thought it better to eat well and sensibly and probably never gave a thought about her weight out of some sense of vanity. She was obviously too comfortable in her skin to care very much – and that meant that she didn't need to care either. Her beauty was breathtaking. He even had a term for it. He was sure that if she ever spent any time in a nice one-piece, she could more than stop any clock.
It crossed his mind that in the right bikini, she he could very likely break them.
He searched his memory, going back to the lands near the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. He'd known many women such as this one. All the ones that he'd known were lovely. In this body – in this age – he was filled with wonder at the many combinations of feminine loveliness all around him. But none of them spoke to him in this way.
His thoughts raced back to those women, going over details and features at lightning speed. Many of them had elements about them which related to his own unspoken and often unthought-of personal ideal. Without even most of the features visible to him here, and going by only what he'd seen of her and what his hands and his body had felt of her...
