When a Man Loves a Woman

His hands grabbed for her arms and pinned her down. She could smell the tobacco in his breath while trying to set herself free from his grasp. The man, who appeared in the darkness, remained hidden in the shadows and held at her firmly. She tried to scream but her voice was choked. Terror of the dark and the man in the darkness had paralyzed her.

She kicked hard into his stomach and managed to scramble out of his clutches. Running aimlessly to an exit which appeared to be nowhere in the darkness of the room. And then his hands grabbed her again and pulled her back on the bed.
“Please let me go. Please.” she yelped out with the voice she found somewhere in her throat.
“Help! Please, someone help!” Her screams were choked and her sobs intensified. But there was no one. There was no mercy.

Suddenly she sat screaming. Sweat ran down her forehead and she could feel the satin negligee stick to her skin. The room was dark. Just like it was in the dream. Shivering within her bones, fear and emotion, she grabbed the glass of water seated on her bed side and gulped down a sip; pulled her duvet on herself and covered up till her neck.

She felt there was someone on the bed with her. She could not see. She did not want to feel to confirm. Panic shot through her entire being and the dream started to become reality. She jumped out of bed and hurriedly moved towards where she thought was the exit and stumbled over the table lying midway between her bed and the door. She fell on the floor with a loud thud. Feeling her way to grab something as weapon, she found nothing, and then his voice echoed, “Who’s there?”
The voice was very known to her.

But that did not stop her from heading out of the closed room. She felt she was claustrophobic.
She again bumped against a pair of shoes and hit her head on the curve of the table.

“Sara? Is that you?”

Still not out of her dream, Sara felt awake within reality. She recognized the voice.
“Sara. What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Ralph?”
Sara let out a huge sigh of relief. A sigh which had an echo in the quiet of the large room.
It wasn’t the man from her nightmare; it was the man of her dreams.
“Thank you, Lord.” Sara couldn’t hold back her tears and she ran back hitting her legs against everything that was in the way and hugged Ralph tight.

He did not even get time to balance. He began stroking her back to calm her down and she cried in his arms. Letting out inconsistent breaths. He patted her until she pulled herself out and wiped off her tears. He lit the lamp on the bedside and sat down balancing himself with a back pillow.

In the low light, her eyes twinkled.
“What is it Honey? What is wrong?”

Sara fumbled to tell him how scared she was of the man who kept coming in the darkness. She’d always felt she was being followed and yet she never told Ralph. If not by the man, then his evil shadows.

The man in the past was the man who made it into the darkness of the present.
“It was just a dream. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

Ralph moved towards her. “Oh my dear, my luv.” He pulled her tightly back into the coziness of his chest.
“You’re shivering. What scared you so much?”

“Nothing. I … I’m fine now.” In reality she was far from being okay.
“Ralph could sense the wrong and the lie in her tone. He settled himself in a more comfortable position and looked in Sara’s eyes. “Tell me.”

“It is him Ralph.” Sara broke down into tears again. He draped an arm around her and knew exactly what ached inside of her. She sunk deeper in his embrace and he gently covered her with the light blanket.

Sara closed her eyes. Thinking of ways to get rid of him, who for a reason was not the man whose arms she was in that night. He was history. He was gone.

Her thoughts returned to the evening of the day she was wed to Ralph. As they’d arranged for bed, she’d been uneasy. But her apprehensions were rested because Ralph had been so understanding and so tender. So unlike him, who always forced himself on her. She hated to think of his name and in Ralph’s arms knew that even if he returned, she was staying right where she was in present.

Guilt stabbed at her. She felt she took Ralph as an excuse to get over him who never could make it. She felt she had some confessions to make. She let herself out from the arms of the man who loved her and stared into his eyes.
“Ralph, I have something to tell you.”

Ralph gently put his hand on her mouth. He had always silenced her agitations before they cause the tornado to hit. He was not interested in that which was not. He loved her.

Sara glanced at Ralph in the glow of the lamp that hardly lit up the room and her heart fluttered with love. He was extremely attractive and a fine man.
Ralph kissed her forehead and then pressed his lips to one cheek and then the other. He gazed at her as if reading her thoughts. “How is it that I’m the lucky one married to you?”

She looked dazed and he could not help but embrace her all over with the kiss that swept her beyond lives. How had been so blessed? She silently thought to herself

“It is I who’s truly blessed my dear,” Sara whispered, barely finding her voice.

"Mmm, to be in your arms on nights like these”, she quickly added before she was lost in his kiss again.
“To wake up beside you every day for the rest of my life . . .” Ralph stared at her, almost completing the words in her heart. “God did me a great favor Sara, I thought I could never love and here I have you in my arms to tell me, I never knew love before I met you.”

“You are my most priceless possession Ralph.” Sarah cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on the forehead. He engulfed her in his embrace as tightly as he could and felt it wasn't enough.

Ralph’s embrace tightened as his love grew by the second, and his lips quenched on hers, with no end to his thirst.

Love, between Sara and Ralph, on the night and many nights after, drove away the nightmares. Passion blazed inside Sara, and all she wanted was to have more than an eternity with the man who had set her ablaze.