The very day, or perhaps the very second, that Blaise Attwater moved into town, the rumors began to spread. The over exercised mouths of the female population gave poor Mr. Attwater no time to settle in, and no time for their own thoughts to brew before the carnage began. They were rather harmless, justifying how such a severely handsome man could possibly remain a bachelor. Initially, they blamed his pious demeanor. He wasn't going to dare touch a girl unless he was sure it was to be requited, not to mention bedding a girl- no, definitely not until marriage. This just seemed to make the poor girls's hearts ache more at the sight of his romanticism.
And then the rumors branched off slightly, telling of how Blaise was actually married, but was forced to separate from his family in search of a job. That one didn't last long- they didn't particularly care for speaking about something they'd rather not hear. There were several others floating around about how his heart was shattered by a beautiful woman who'd captured him the moment he'd set eyes on her. Some said that she had died- others said that he had walked in on her pleasing another man in his own bedroom.
“His own bedroom?!” shrieked Danielle Perez, batting her hands stupidly in front of her face, fanning herself.
Her friend quickly shushed her, but then continued to speak of the stranger, and of his straitlaced ways (“But I hear he's not quite so restrained in the bedroom...”) and of his enigmatic past- which was, clearly, packed with depravity and sex and all sorts of dangerous and clandestine women. Danielle was having some trouble believing that a person could be so interesting. As her friend continued to throw more and more “information”s in her face, she was briefly graced with the image of Mr. Attwater, raised by a scaffold, the crowd below him unintentionally degrading him with a load of nonsensical shouts that she couldn't quite understand. Mr. Attwater had duct-tape over his mouth, and he looked quite perplexed as one of the people rose up with an axe and beheaded him. Danielle caught his head.
“Oy! Don't zone out on me, I haven't told you what Mrs. Silva told me yet.”
Danielle looked down into her open hands and saw that it had, in fact, been a breakfast biscuit she had caught, and not a decapitated head.
“And you can have the biscuit.”
Her friend continued to eat her meal and jabber on. Danielle, after deciding it would be very impossible for her to eat it, politely set the biscuit down on her plate so she could pretend it didn't exist, and then continued to fan herself, wondering if stories seemed crazier when one was getting a beating from the sun.
##
That very evening Danielle found herself sat across from the very victim of her friend's verbal dissection. Guiltily, she found her eyes spending a few extra breaths stroking the soft skin of his lips and his face. They would glide down to his neck, and mentally she would unbutton the first button under his starched collar. For the sake of their conversation, she wished that he wasn't so seductive in the way that he spoke.
It was an odd thing, really, the way she had stumbled into the seat facing Blaise Attwater. She had been at the hamburger joint where she worked during the week and all of a sudden in walked what at first appeared to be an angel. Danielle quickly corrected this infantile assumption with minimal scarlet added to the flesh of her cheeks. She decided that this stranger was most definitely the cynosure of the prattling about town. The reason was obvious, now that she had her own two eyes on him. She recalled her unexpressed complaints about how any being with a pair of X chromosomes would not shut up about the new charmer in town like an ninety year old man would recall his first birthday. Something about the last thirty seconds had made her an adult- had made her a woman.
But, woman or not, she did have a job to do. She pounced over to the podium with actual enthusiasm for once and got him seated and hydrated before any actual conversation took place. And then as casually as she could muster, she began: “So, are you new in town? Visiting someone?”
He glanced at her and flashed a sort of lopsided smile, “Just moved here, actually. Do I stick out that badly?”
She shrugged, “It's a small town. Every face is a familiar face. Well, that is, besides yours.” After just a few precious seconds with the man's attention, she could tell that there was something besides his strong profile that made him so charming. Mr. Attwater was simply enchanting in any and in every way shape or form God's hands would allow. She ducked her eyes away quickly after realizing that she was most definitely staring. Her cheeks burned a little, but she wasn't going to give up on their conversation quite yet. “So,” she said, dampening her lips and attempting to catch her breath. “So what should I call you then?”
“Just call me Blaise,” he said simply, and Danielle got the feeling that there was some hidden amusement behind the smile he gave her. It was impossible that he didn't know what kind of effect he was having on her.
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If you have any ideas for random jobs, please do give them to me. Blaise has no career yet, and that is highly necessary if I'm to continue this.
