ds_flashfiction | Curtain Challenge

This is a little story that came to me. It probably would have qualified for another challenge, but it didn't appear in my head for that one. This story comes in at 470 words. Many thanks to BethH, Ces and Celeste (a non-LJ friend who's stuck with me through thick and thin since my Forever Knight days)for offering suggestions on how to improve and clean up this little story. Belated thanks to Laura Kaye for my howling good icon, she's an icon goddess.

The honeymoon was a gift from her parents. Ray had never gotten along with them. He knew they didn't like or approve of him, Stella had told him; but he didn't need to hear the words for him to know. Whenever he was at their house, her mother had an expression on her face that made him check the bottom of his shoes.

He tried to win them over, slicking his hair down, wearing a clean white shirt his mother had ironed, with black slacks; sitting politely and talking about college and future plans, but it didn't matter, he just wasn't good enough for their little girl.

Stella married him anyway and her parents gave them a honeymoon to the Caribbean. They rented a jeep and drove up to a secluded spot straight out of a picture postcard. There was a large lagoon, as blue as Stella's eyes, with a waterfall flowing into it. Large tropical leaves from plants he couldn't even begin to name waved lazily in the breeze and the sweet smells from colorful flowers scented the air. They shed their clothing and swam in the lagoon, reveling in the warm water and their freedom. They swam through the waterfall into a large cave and made love behind the curtain of water that shielded them from the outside world. He had his beautiful Stella, looking at him with such love that he felt he would do anything for her. Life was perfect.

Ray didn't know when things started changing, maybe he wasn't paying attention or maybe he was just too stupid to tell, but at some point in their marriage Stella's eyes had taken on a hard steel-blue color and the love that used to be in them was cloaked behind an expression of disappointment. He found himself checking his shoes when he was around her.

~~~o0o~~~

Ray sighed as he looked at another waterfall, this one colder, but just as beautiful. The water came from the snow melting high up in the mountains as spring made its cautious way into the north. The air was crisp and clean, the silence beautiful, broken only by the sound of the water cascading over the rocks. He was content. No one was judging him, no one was making him feel as though he had let them down, he didn't have to prove himself to anyone because the one person who mattered thought he was just fine.

"Ray?"

Ray turned to look at his partner. Fraser's head was tilted, his eyebrow raised slightly. When Ray looked into his eyes, there was no curtain hiding his soul. The love and respect were there for the whole world, but Ray especially, to see.

"Are you okay?"

Ray smiled, "I'm great, Ben, just great. Everything is perfect."

And this time, it really was.