Magdalena's Eyes

Magdalena closed her Bible and sighed softly. There was no pain in her eyes though it was well after 3 A.M. and Peter was, once again, not in the bed beside her. It was but the latest in a long series of lonely nights...just another long shadow mocking the folly of the path she had chosen. She was, after a fashion, used to it. And there was, therefore, no pain in Magdalena's eyes.

She muttered another soft prayer and switched off the bedside lamp. She rolled over and snuggled into the space where her husband belonged. Pointedly ignoring the muted heat calling from between her thighs, she closed her eyes and drifted away.

She hadn't cried herself to sleep in months.

Tonight would be no exception.

A very long time ago...before Peter, before her baby girls, before slow death in the suburbs...Magdalena was rebellious soul...clear-eyed and unpredictable...a woman to be reckoned with. And she was a vixen...an alluring combination of softly rounded womanly curves, cascading black hair, and dark vibrant eyes.

Many men gave much...heart and soul...in wishful hopes of winning her radiant, deliciously tantalizing affections. Few received much, if anything, of substance in return.

For Magdalena was...for all the unspent passion blazing in the searing glow of those dazzling eyes and in the casual, sassy sway of her full hips...a self-proclaimed child of Jesus; a born-again soul who disdained the stifling rituals of her Catholic upbringing (much to the continuing dismay of her mother...as much a reason for doing it as any other) in favor of the more humanistic God found in the makeshift pulpits of ramshackle storefront churches and windswept outdoor revival meetings. Her body would only be possessed by a man who already possessed her heart.

For most of her suitors, the dichotomy only increased their ardor...only increased the aching longing to be held in passionate favor by Magdalena's night-dark eyes.

Magdalena never smoked and she only rarely drank...but how she danced. Lord, how she danced. She danced with soulful abandon...she danced within the most intimate confines of the music...she danced with little heed paid to her partner or to any who might be watching with envious (or lustful) eyes. She danced without inhibition, a study in sensuous grace seizing the contours of the music and making them willing slaves to her body.

Magdalena's eyes glowed even brighter when she danced (only Jesus brought more light to those amazing eyes.) And she'd smile a broad, disarming smile for no one in particular...and laugh softly at a constant, extremely private joke.

And the boys (for that is what they all were to her) would write poems and pledges of undying love on their sleeves in the heart-worn ink of lust and loneliness.

At night, Magdalena guilelessly toyed with hearts...inciting blinding bittersweet fever while deftly skewering even the most heartfelt come-ons and verbal mash notes with subtle, well-aimed barbs and gentle, obscure evasions.

Come daylight, Magdalena would wrap herself once more in the word of God and in the mannerisms and bearing of a woman three times her age. But despite frumpy, high-buttoned dresses and endless references to the New Testament, Magdalena couldn't completely mask the fire blazing in her magical eyes...that fire that she only gave free reign to when she was dancing.

Peter had recognized that fire with more cunning than most. Patiently, he wooed her spirit...deftly breaking through one barrier after another...and in time, he won her heart and her body as well.

The prize won, Peter gave her a ring and his seed. Magdalena dutifully bore him three daughters and he slipped out into the night in search of new treasures to claim as his own.

And so Magdalena sleeps alone on more nights than she cares to count...or remember. Peter will, sometime before dawn, stumble in, the pungent aroma of cheap wine and lonely women clinging to him like a shroud.

But there will be no pain in Magdalena's eyes as she feigns sleep while he slurs the wrong words to some inane pop song and slumps into bed beside her snoring almost before his head hits the pillow...pain had given way to numbness, pious resignation, and bittersweet nostalgia so very, very long ago.

But every now and again, she will smile wistfully, pick up one of her babies and sway softly to one of the songs playing so often in her heart and her mind. Every now and again, Magdalena will smile wistfully, remembering a much younger woman who could dance to her heart's content...a woman who could break hearts without meaning to and laugh at her private little, carefree jokes. Every now and again, she'll stop and remember when she could dance forever...dance while every boy in the room basked in the searing, intoxicating fire burning in the unfathomable depths of Magdalena's eyes.

(for M.S.)