Miriam sat behind her secretarial desk reading her Mills and Boon. Eating the words with her eyes.

“Good morning Dr Carlson” she smiled, instinctively looking up from her book and leaning across her desk to hand him his messages. Her top was cut low and Dr Carlson was embarrassed to find his eyes being drawn down. He covered it up quickly.

“Um, your necklace. Its…um, pretty.”

“Oh this?” Miriam fingered her gold chain with a number of expensive looking rings hanging off it. “Its more sentimental then pretty Dr Carlson”.

“Call me Tim,” he said, awkwardly waving the messages in the air.

“Can I call you Darrell?”

“What?”

“Nothing”

“Oh. Well. I’ll see you at lunch”.

Dr Timothy Carlson was the doctor at a local Clinic. He was middle aged, around the time when most men buy sports cars. He was divorced, which was perfect, so was Miriam. Sort of. Their relationship was professional, based around coffee and retrieving patients files. But Miriam handed the coffee and retrieved the files so professionally, and with such a practised technique, that Dr Carlson could not help but notice her other qualities, packed tightly into binding outfits. Her perfume followed him around the clinic. A constant floral reminder of her presence. And despite the way her face wrinkled when she smiled, and her thins giggled when she walked, she still managed to maintain a classic maiden like quality. He could picture her in his dreams, leaning out of her tower, waving a handkerchief in some medieval Morse code.

“Um, hello Miram”

“Hello Darrell”

“What?”

“Nothing”

“oh… Listen. Miriam. I was wondering if you would like to come and visit my insectarium this Saturday. I find it quite fascinating, and you said you were interested, didn’t you?”

Miriam smiled and placed her hand on his. It was clammy.

“Oh Tim, that is so sweet, I would love to go on a date with you”.

Dr Timothy Carlson winced, as if the word ‘date’ contained a mild electric shock.

“Well, good. I’ll pick you up at eleven in the morning?”

“Sure”. Inside Miriam was bubbling with a deep feeling of injustice. How dare he? An insectarium? This had not been planned. Fortunately Miriam was a firm believer that in the game of love, men were playing blind and were always open to helpful instruction. She swivelled on her chair. Weeeee. And turned to face her secretarial computer, quickly typing out a message she could slip into his brief case. At the end of the note she wrote: PS: This note never existed.

He picked her up in a red sports car with a dozen red roses. She climbed into the car and giggled,

“Oh, thankyou, that’s so considerate”.

“Well, thanks for the note” He blushed. Miriam smelt the roses and faced the front, waiting. Had she heard him? He spoke again, “thanks for the note”.

“What note? Where are we going?”

“err… on a picnic”.

“oh! I love picnics!”

“Here” he said, confused, handing her the box of chocolates that she had suggested.

“Oh I can’t eat those you evil man! I have to watch my figure,” she said, running her hands seductively over her 40-year-old waist.

Let me watch your figure, he spoke huskily, slipping his arm firmly around her waist. Selecting a chocolate, he slipped it between her red lips, letting it melt inside the furnace of her mouth.

“Don’t be silly Miriam” said Timothy, starting the car. “You look more than fine for your age”. She linked her hand with his as he reached for the stick, then closed her eyes and opened her mouth. Timothy looked about, confused, and then picked up a chocolate, dropping it into her mouth as if she was one of those rotating carnival clowns. Miriam chocked a little, but then managed to chew and swallow. “Thankyou” she gasped.

After the picnic Darrell whisked her back to her house. He turned off the raging sports car, and Miriam swooned at how he handled the ferocious piece of machinery.

“Where are we?” asked Miriam, looking about them, the afternoon sun setting over the horizon.

“My insectarium, I thought you might like to see it?”

“Oh… you know I would you silly fool!” she slapped him playfully and he looked relived. As they stepped inside the smell overwhelmed her, it was the smell of mothballs and chemicals. The walls were lined with glass cases and in them were butterflies and beetles and spiders. Miriam was horribly aware that she was being lead into a man’s world. Where beautiful things were killed so that they could be pinned down, labelled and preserved with reeking chemicals. Everything was understood and safe. The florescent light flickered.

“Which one am I?” she teased, running her fingers down his back. He flinched.

“umm… this one. My favourite. The Emerald Butterfly”.

“So pretty” she said sadly, wandering along the collection of dead things, “What about this insect?”

He laughed, “The Black Widow spider, that’s an arachnid, not an insect. They’re heartless little things, she consumes her mate after sex”.

“Heartless?” Miriam stopped focusing on the spider and instead watched her thoughtful reflection in the glass. “Maybe her heart is too big. Maybe she knows that after that first night, sex will be passionless and empty. Romance will be replaced by housework and children. He’ll forget their anniversary, say he needs alone time but really he’s just repulsed by her presence. And years later, she will realise that the love they had died that first night and, what a shame he didn’t die too”.

He looked at her side on, scared to talk or move. “I shouldn’t have taken you here, you didn’t want to come”.

“Oh don’t be ridiculous! I love it, today was perfect.

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

As the months passed Miriam wove her web of romance around Timothy. Roses, poetry, weekends away. She pretended to see him flirting with Rebecca Keeley who runs the post office, until he apologised for the imagined offence with a pair of platinum earrings and a lovesick letter. That was when she knew she had him. Platinum. It was a sign.

In October they went wine tasting. Her idea. Although they both pretended it was his.

A romantic dinner away. The candles danced in time with the violins. He leaned in closely, producing a small ring box. “I can never imagine a life without you”.

He stumbled through his sentences. Miriam pursed her lips; she wished that she could say them for him. “As you know Miriam, we’ve been seeing each other for a few months now”.

“Six months and twenty one days” she corrected him.

“Yes. Well. I don’t want you to feel pressured, and this might seem presumptuous of me, but, well, I’m just going to say it. Here”.

She shook the box, pretending she had no idea what it was. A small metallic jingle came from inside. She prepared herself to act surprised, and snapped the box open. Inside was a small bronze house key. “What’s this?”

“Would you like to move in with me?”

“yes! Yes! Yes!” she cried. Throwing herself across the table and into his arms. Letting them encircle her. “I never want to be apart from you. We’ll be together, forever”.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Well Timmy. Its not very… romantic”

Timothy scoffed, “we’re too old for romance Miriam”.

She stood up and threw her napkin down. “I didn’t date you for the last six months and twenty one days to find out that you have commitment issues! You’re just like every other man! You manipulated me!”

“I don’t understand! What else do you want?”

“What do you think I want?” she hissed. “I want a wedding ring. I want a happily ever after!”

“Don’t you think that’s moving a bit fast?”

Miriam gave an exasperated grunt and then stormed out of the restaurant and into the starry night.

The next night Timothy was at his friend’s house. They sat on the back veranda, drinking cheap wine and looking at the stars. “Everything I say and do is wrong” Ben vented. “It’s like women have this script of everything that should happen in a relationship and when and how. And they expect you to know everything. But how can you know? How can you know?”

“Don’t worry. It all gets easier once your married”.

“I’ve been married John. I know what its like, and I don’t want to go back there again”.

As per the instructions in a letter that Miriam ‘didn’t’ send him, Timothy was soon on bended knee outside her house. Two dozen roses in one hand, a ring box in another. His proposal was perfect. She couldn’t have written it better herself.

“I can’t imagine life without you”. He said, looking up at her.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she cried, running into his arms. “I never want to be apart from you. We’ll be together, forever”.

The wedding was perfect, with blue silk table clothes.

“Timothy wanted the table clothes” Miriam would gush to her guests.

“No I didn’t. I told you, you could have whatever table clothes you like”

“But you said. Remember? I could choose the cake, the dress and the flower girls shoes, but you wanted blue silk table clothes”.

“Yes… now I remember”.

The honeymoon was perfect. Tuscany. They rented a small Villa and he carried her over the thresh hold. She lay in the darkness, wrapped in his sweaty arms, and whispered.

“Darrell”

“What?”

“Promise me that we wont grow old like those horrible couples you see in the cinema who don’t have anything left to say to each other. Like their love, the romance, it died after they married each other and they have nothing left to hold them together except wedding rings”.

“I promise,” he mumbled into her neck.

“I promise too,” she whispered.

The next morning Timothy rolled over to snuggle his bride, no, his wife. But there was an empty space where her warm body should have been. He searched the room. Her clothes, her bags, they were gone. Left on the table was a Mills and Boon novel. It looked as if it had been read to death. Its scrappy pages were filled with highlighted passages and desperate notes scribbled in the margins.

Dr Timothy Carlson spent the whole day reading the medical romance. Between Dr Darrell Dawson and his secretary, Miriam. It was like reading the last few months of his life. The last sentence stung.

“You can pick the cake, the dress and the flower girls shoes, but I want blue satin table clothes”. That was the end. The words were underlined and circled and written next to them in wild handwriting was a haunting question.

“What next?”