My Enigma

"Because you love to plan hugely complicated events?" I'd asked, bemused, eyeing the thousands of plastic balls that she'd used to turn my bedroom into a ball pit while I slept. I'd spent the day digging through the mass, looking for her as she disappeared into the colorful spheres. And in so looking, I'd found dozens of small treasures she'd secreted away, mostly sex toys. So, of course, we'd had to try them all.

Laughing, she shook her head, "Beside that."

"Well, tell me then," I prompted.

"April is the month of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. So, I always thought that April Fools day was the day for people to act like fools in love."

"Do you mean to say you love me?" I'd teased hopefully.

She'd never said it, although I had told her as often as I could that I loved her. She had told me long ago that she didn't think she could love, and I'd shrugged and gone along with it. I hadn't imagined we'd be together long enough for it to matter. It had been over a year since then, though, and I craved that bit of validation. Not enough to force the issue though. I sensed she'd vanish on me if I did that.

"If I could love anyone, it would be you," she told me, her eyes meeting mine.

It was enough. It had to be, I would get nothing more. She never talked about herself, her childhood, her career. I told her everything about me, and she was still a mystery. Everywhere we went, she charmed everyone we met right away. It would take her mere minutes, and people would do anything for her, just like I would.

But I was the one she chose to spend April Fools Day with, her special day. I held that thought tightly in my heart. Nothing else mattered, if only I was as important to her as she was to me. Whatever she called it.

The conversation had left her quiet and thoughtful. I could see her smile fading away as some secret memories took over.

I felt around the bed, my hand grasping a rubber handle. Holding it high, I exclaimed, "Look what I found! We missed one!"

She laughed, and my heart stuttered with joy. The little flogger I'd grabbed had two rubber hoses with small rubber balls attached to each one. I slapped it at her playfully.

"Oh no," She grasped my wrist, "that's not how this works, my sweet!"

I let go of the toy easily enough, and laid back, baring myself to her. She bent her wrist, flicking the rubber balls onto my nipple, already sore from her love bites. I gasped and writhed in the pleasure of pain.

"I love you!" I cried out joyfully.

She shut me up with a passionate kiss, her hand still swinging her flog at me wherever she could reach.

~~~~~

Yes, that was it. Aphrodite was the goddess of my Desiree's favorite month. But if Aphrodite was a false name, and I could definitely believe that, then what did Festo mean? Maybe she'd gotten a friend to publish a false news story, I mused. She might do it, knowing I'd go googling for clues.

There was a sure way to find out, I knew. I could just go down to the prison and ask to visit Aphrodite Festo. Maybe she was even waiting for me to do exactly that? Fear of what I'd find stopped me.

Of course I would love her, criminal or not. And while the paper had called her a drug dealer, I knew they often exaggerated. Like when I'd walked over to see why my friend, to whom I'd loaned my car, was being arrested in the parking lot of our apartment complex. I hadn't known she'd had a suspended license, but that made loaning her a car illegal, apparently. They sent four cop cars for that, and the joint they had found tucked in the driver's seat.

Six hours later, they'd led me out of the police station, keeping my license - illegally I'd later learned. But there was no bevy of cops to right that wrong. I sighed at the memory, knowing it was a nothing more than a slight irritation compared to what might have happened. I'd faced six months in jail over that little incident, and thankfully, had been spared that.

My thoughts returned to Desiree, she'd always been so careful to keep me at a distance from the rest of her life. Never introducing me to her friends, her family, anyone she knew outside the circle of people she met when out with me. There had to be a reason for that.

Maybe she's married, my mind insisted suspiciously. But my heart didn't believe it was something so simple as that. Maybe she's a cop. I frowned at the theory. Would she have kept that secret from me just because of my irrational aversion? Probably, I concluded.

Either way, she'd gone through a lot of trouble to see me this April Fool's Day, I knew that, at least. She still cared for me, in her way. I'd respect her privacy and not go looking for her, I decided with resignation. I just hoped she'd come back soon.

Days turned to weeks, and then months passed and there was no further word from my lover. My sleepless nights and unrelenting arousal which had been abated that April 1st returned with a vengeance by May. Every day, I thought about showing up at the prison, demanding to see someone called Aphrodite Festo. And every day, I held back.

But as the days got longer and hotter, the urge grew, when it should have faded. How could she command my mind, still? Months of absence, no word but that simple poem and one day of dreamy sex. I tried to forget, really, I tried to let go.

In July I went to a lesbian club, determined to get over my Desiree once and for all. But none of the women there could hold a candle to the light that burned inside my lover. I went home, alone. I reached into my bed side table drawer for my vibrator, like I had a thousand times before. In my haste, I accidentally knocked it away from me, back into the depths of the drawer instead. Hunting for it, my hand clasped over something cool, smooth, and rough. Curious, I pulled it out.

It was a partly polished pyrite cluster, shaped into a heart. She had given it to me on the first April Fool's Day we'd spent together. The memory swept over me.

~~~~~

I shivered as I stood on the viewing platform in the night, wondering for the hundredth time what I was doing there. I'd found a postcard on my car windshield that morning. On the front of the card was a photo of the view from this platform, and on the back was simply written a time and a stylized letter "D."

The name of the state park on the postcard had clued me in to where the place was, and a Google search had helped me locate the actual spot. I'd decided to go ahead and show up, assuming the woman I'd been seeing occasionally, Desiree, had some sort of date plan, cryptic as this was.

We weren't serious, but I did find her seriously fun. I had hoped she'd be fun tonight, too. But I'd shown up fifteen minutes early and now it was fifteen minutes late. It was cold and dark, and I was feeling pretty stupid. Maybe this was her idea of an April Fool's prank? Getting me to waste my time driving out here in the middle of the night.

My jaw tightened. If she was making fun of me, that was it for her and I. I didn't care how beautiful and alluring she was, I wouldn't stay with someone who thought it was funny to waste my time.

Feeling angry and dejected at a half-hour past the cited time, I headed down the tower. I frowned as I came around the bend in the stairs to the first landing. There were dozens of candles set up along the edges. Those absolutely hadn't been here when I'd gone up.

In the middle of the large square platform was a large picnic basket.

"Desiree?" I called out.

There was no answer. Curious, I went over to examine the basket. Carefully, I opened the lid. Inside, laying on top of a bunch of Tupperware bins was a white paper that said simply, "April Fool's!"

I frowned at it as I tried to read it in the dim light, which is why I didn't notice the darkly dressed figure who crept up the steps and across the platform next to me. When I glanced up from the paper, her face was inches from mine.

I screamed and jumped backward, tripping over my feet. Instead of letting me fall backwards on the wooden deck, she caught me in her embrace. She bent down, necessary because I was arched over her arm like a dipped dancer, and kissed me.

I wrapped my arms around her neck and kissed back. She was such a damn good kisser, all my irritation fled away on our mingled breath.

"Did you miss me?" she asked with a grin.

"I was mad at you," I replied.

"Was? Not anymore, I hope."

"Who can stay mad at you when you kiss like that?" I said, honestly.

On the platform, when we sat, the wind was blocked by the solid railings. It was warmer than it had been on top, and I took off my jacket. We rested on it together, pressed closely next to each other.

She unpacked the food for us. Cheese and crackers, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, whipped cream, and a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream. We took turns feeding each other, until that devolved into spraying whipped cream on each other and licking it off.

In the dark, candle lit platform, we made love. Desiree undressed me, tossing my clothes aside, running her hands along my skin. She pinched my nipples roughly, rubbing them until they hurt. It was something I never knew I would enjoy, her brand of painful pleasure, until she had shown me. Now, I couldn't get enough.

I peeled off my pants, tugging off her shirt as well. I wrapped my hand around one of her breasts, squeezing it so that her puckered pink nipple poked out prettily in the flickering light. I enclosed it in my lips, gently sucking. The cold air teased at my skin as I knelt next to my lover. She took off her pants too and we slipped down to lay on the cold wood together, warmed only by each other's heat.

"I love you," the words slipped out of my mouth unbidden.

"You're my sweet one," she said softly as she kissed me deeply.

I guessed It was as much as I could expect from her. I decided not to dwell on her choice of words, and instead rubbed my body against hers, wrapping my legs around her pelvis so that our pussies pressed into each other. The pressure on my clit titillated me, building my need for more and more stimulation.

Soon I was straddling her as she lay back, grinding myself into her rhythmically. She smiled up at me, and a moment later I was flipped under her instead. She rocked until she shuddered with a clitoral orgasm, then she rolled to my side and plunged her fingers inside me, wetting them before taking them out to rub my clit instead. I came as she sucked on my nipple.

Heated by our sex and the alcohol, and made drowsy by both as well, we fell asleep there. We'd shivered awake in the night, dressed and cleaned up our mess, before heading home in my car. I had no idea how Desiree had gotten there, but apparently it'd not involved a car.

Before we left, she had led me up to the top platform one more time. As we looked out over the moonlit vista, she took my hand in hers and pressed this small heart chunk of metal into it. I examined it, amused.

"What's this?"

"It's fool's gold, iron pyrite," she'd explained.

"It's really pretty," I had replied. "I didn't know we were supposed to exchange presents for April Fool's Day, I would have got you something."

"Nah, I like April Fool's, that's all. It's my day."

~~~~~

I examined that same chunk of metal in my had now. Iron sulfide, I mused. Iron, whose element symbol was Fe, and sulfide, otherwise known as S2. FeS2. FeStwo. Festo. I marveled at the simplicity of it, at her commitment to April Fool's.

Desiree, or whatever her name was, had spent her last four April Fool's days with me. No one else. It was her favorite day, her day for lovers. Whatever was going on with her now, she hadn't missed it this year either.

I clutched the heart shaped rock to my chest and cried, letting the sadness run out of me. How long could I keep going on a memory and a promise? I gritted my teeth. I could do it, forever. There was no other choice. At least, I told myself, when April came around again, she'd surely come back, if even only for a day.

A week later, the news broke. A major drug smuggling operation at the local prison had been uncovered. Even the warden had been involved and was arrested. The evidence had been gathered by an undercover cop who'd been working the case on the inside, the article said. My knuckles turned white as I read the story, gripping my desk. My heart clenched, fearing that my lover would be mentioned, but there was no Aphrodite in the story.

Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that she was involved, somehow. I just hoped she was alright, whatever had happened.

I was so focused on the story that I didn't hear my front door open. Didn't hear the steps coming up behind me. Didn't even hear the breathing next to my ear.

"April Fool's," a soft voice breathed in my ear.

"It's July," I said, my voice catching in my throat. I couldn't move.

"Breathe," she said gently, and her fingers twined in my hair.

"I've missed you so much," I sobbed, tears flowing beyond my control.

"I've missed you, too."

She swiveled my chair and kissed me. I blinked up at her, alarmed to see that her eyes were wet with tears too. My lover never cried, ever. She was impervious to that sort of thing, just as much as she claimed to be immune to love.

"D-" I started, then stopped as she placed a finger to my lips.

"Ashley, Ashley Telsman."

I closed my eyes and breathed, "No fooling?"

She shook her head, "Not anymore, my sweet."

I kissed her again, my tongue dancing into her lips. Criminal or cop? Married or just a compulsive liar? I didn't care. Couldn't care, with her there in my arms. I pressed my forehead into hers, savoring the heat of her skin on mine.

"I love you," I mumbled against her mouth.

"I love you, too." She replied, claiming my heart forever.