Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold(9)

I pulled up a chair. ‘Who are you and what do you do?’

‘Shahryār Javid. Professor at The City University. Politics and history.’

I nodded. ‘Right. And let me guess, as well as this you are the leader of the pressure group? Holding the powers-that-be to account? Well, you call yourself a pressure group, but what you actually do is spy and sabotage.’

Shahryār smiled breezily. ‘Not at all. I’m just here to learn and do my civic duty. Get locked into the thrilling world of municipal politics.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m on the side of peace.’

Well that was bullshit. This man was a quiet warrior and, now that I was close enough, I could smell it on him. I found I quite liked the scent.

I crossed my legs and slid my head to the side. ‘That’s what everyone says. You didn’t believe a word my client said in there, did you?’

‘Do you?’

I was caught off guard, and caught off guard that I was caught off guard. ‘That’s not the point . . .’

He took a sip of his coffee and his warm honey eyes sparkled. ‘You don’t. Doesn’t surprise me. You’re smarter than everyone else who was in that room. Including me. You should have been stood on that podium. I hear you tell the best stories. In fact, don’t they call you The Storyteller?’

Ah. I nodded slowly, smiling. He wasn’t just a sweet college professor, he was me . . . He was me on a different tier – not higher, but different. His organisation was in direct opposition to mine, equally as dangerous and covert, but his role demanded a little more discretion. It was why he also had the professor job. It was also why he knew who I was, and I had no idea who he was. A thrill ran through me. It had been a while since I’d faced a challenge.

‘Are you going to be a problem for me, Shahryār?’

Shahryār grinned at me. ‘Let me buy you that coffee.’

It started off casual. It had to be. Though we represented two people who were technically on the same side ideologically, they were opponents locked in a civil war, arguing over semantics and delivery. Escalation could have been ugly and often it threatened to be, but that’s why they had us. We kept them in line. We were their generals, and so we had no time for anything as plebeian and ordinary as dating. What, were we going to do ‘dinner and a movie’ after a day of strategising how our clients would destroy each other? Impossible.

Shahryār couldn’t hold a girlfriend down and I didn’t want a boyfriend to hold me down, and so it was agreed that we’d only hook up if we bumped into each other at events. We bumped into each other at events a lot. Soon we started booking hotel rooms in which to bump into each other more, and then one day he bumped into me at my house, cooked for me, and we bumped into each other on the floor of my kitchen.

One day, after we’d bumped into each other in his house a few times and we were curled up on the sofa together – me watching TV, him reading a book – he stroked my hair and murmured into it, ‘This is good. Isn’t it?’

My body and mind relaxed around him so easily that it took considerable effort to heave my barriers back up. I did it, though, because this set me on edge. I said, ‘Yeah, it is . . .’ while I pushed myself off his chest and leant against the back of the sofa in what I presumed would seem like a carefree manner. ‘I think what makes it so good is that we both know what it is, you know?’

Shahryār put his book down on the side and folded his glasses away, adjusting himself on the sofa so he could look at me through those sweet amber eyes that always made me want to furl myself into him. His face didn’t betray a mite of emotion. ‘Right. What is it again?’

I shrugged. ‘We’re casual. Two friends whose mutual interests align considerably, and one of those interests happens to be sex with each other.’

He was quiet for a few moments before nodding slowly. ‘Of course. I’m actually talking to two other women right now.’

I smiled brightly, perhaps too brightly. ‘Good. That’s great. I’m happy for you.’

I snuggled back up against him and inhaled the soft cottony heat of his chest. He had stopped stroking my hair.

When I told Shahryār to keep talking to those women, I truly believed I meant it. It was painful, but it was that pain that assured me I was doing the right thing. I saw it as a necessary bloodletting to maintain my health. I had to cut the infection out, and in this case the infection was deep affection for Shah. I’d got this far by being on my own and not allowing myself to be softened. That was what I knew and what I grew up with. That was where I was safe. Aloneness. The fact that I was unnerved by how I felt at the thought of him kissing these women, or whispering softly in their ear like he did with me, was confirmation of my wise decision making.

It was incomprehensible that I should care. As I perused his (few and limited) social media pages at night and went through his follower list with monomaniacal determination, trying to see who looked like they might be his type, I was certain it was my professional habit having its way with me. I was just researching; I was just thirsty for knowledge. Was having a curious mind a sin and . . . Okay, am I crazy or does that girl Ziba look exactly like me, except that I can actually pull off that haircut?

It was turning me into a bad person, and not the fun kind of bad person either, but the kind of bad person I abhorred: jealous, petty and critical of another woman’s shade of lipstick. So, I did my job and fixed it. I moulded the narrative to one that served me. We were both equally available and it just so happened that I was pickier than he was. It wasn’t that I thought of him and smiled in public like a loon, it wasn’t that I skipped home after work on days that I knew he was coming over. I believed the story I sculpted because I had to. The alternative was that I had lost control of my own narrative, that our story was spilling beyond my set limits, that it may not have a limit. It would be out of my hands; I would not be able to protect myself. That was something I refused to allow.