The Perfect Weapon: Chapter 2017: Part 3: Post 3 of 6
NOTE: This chapter is uploaded in 6 posts. This is the 3rd of 6.
Chapter 2017: Part 3: 3rd post
Irina took a deep breath as she reached the top of the stairs and looked over the bow of the yacht. She glanced around at the beautiful appointments of the luxury vessel and over the white railing. Blue water as far as the eye could see in every direction. Infinity. How appropriate. How lovely. How typical of Jack to think of the idea of being married in the middle of infinity. And on international waters. How perfect. She turned and saw Jack waiting for her. The look on his face stopped her heart and the hand he was now holding out to her started it again.
How perfect. How...real and true and everything she’d always wanted and had almost missed having. Not this time, not this time. She moved firmly and purposefully toward him without thinking, the pull from him to her tugging her forward until the infinite cool blue expanse around them faded to nothing more than the heated brown depths of his eyes. He was hers. Again and for always.
“Honey. You look...” Jack sighed. He looked down at her as the gold sari seemed to catch fire in the rays of the early evening sun. She looked gilded and... He had no real words. “Beyond...”
“Do I look the way you imagined me all those years ago?”
“You look even more beautiful than I imagined.” Jack smiled as he raised his hand to flip at the dangling earrings she wore. The very first gift he’d ever given her. And those dangling hearts on her bouquet were for later. The sari...He sighed. The way she looked tonight was how he’d always wanted her to look on their wedding day - confident, happy, her eyes as radiant as the fabric sliding over her loveliness. “Even more beautiful.”
“And if I may say, you look even more beautiful than you did the first time,” Dave said softly, touching Irina’s shoulder.
“I..why?” Irina asked curiously.
Jack interrupted. “I know. Because there is no fear in your eyes this time, honey. Only confidence in your path.” Something new. Speaking of which...he didn’t remember ever seeing her wear anything attached to her chain since she’d returned. “What’s that?” Jack reached out to touch the gleam he saw through the sari’s weave.
“Hands off.” Irina stepped back. “A bride needs to have some secrets.”
“Secrets? What kind of secrets?” Jack asked eagerly. If he had secrets for her to uncover, it was only fitting she had a puzzle of her own for him to unravel.
“Jewelry secrets.”
“Evil woman.” Jack grinned. “Seriously, what is it?”
“You’ll find out when you...” Irina twirled around slowly. “When you unwrap me.”
“I can do that now-“ Jack offered, ignoring Sydney’s impatient sigh and Dave’s quick grin. Yes, he was misdirecting her. All for a good cause.
“How shocking! Not until after the wedding.”
“Why are we standing here, then?” Jack asked, taking Irina’s hand as they went toward the bow of the ship to say their vows.
“Where are we, Jack?” Irina asked once again as they walked toward the captain who would marry them.
Jack gestured toward the ocean surrounding them. Yes, they were surrounded, but not trapped. Not any longer. Now, he felt only freedom and hope for the future. The promise of a year ago had triumphed over the threat of failure. He stroked his hand down Irina’s hair and wrapped his hair in the waves tumbling over her shoulders. “In international waters within an hour or so of a coastline, as you know from our trip out here.”
“You mean after you removed my blindfold.” Irina sighed. Jack was not going to budge. And he said she was stubborn. Humph. He had some surprise in mind and she would just have to be patient. “I suppose I’ll just have to have faith that you know what you’re doing.”
“That would be gratifying,” Jack said drily. She had wanted this wedding and he was going to give it to her, but he was more eager for the events that would occur after the ceremony. Although he must admit, he was looking forward to seeing her face when he told her what the perfect weapon was. Another reason to move this moment along. “Equally gratifying would be your cooperation in commencing this ceremony.”
Irina smiled slowly and watched the muscle in Jack’s jaw tighten. Jack was impatient, which meant he had plans. Significant plans. The last time he’d had significant plans involving her, it had been a mixed curse and blessing, although blessing had triumphed over curse. But his new plan apparently required timing, which meant...
What he wanted to do must not involve this yacht. How interesting since this yacht was so richly appointed that it had every luxury one might imagine. Hmm. Those plans probably involved something more than this yacht, so she should probably cooperate. “Of course, Jack. Whatever you want.” She handed her roses to Sydney, standing close to her side and smiled again as Dave patted his pocket, just as he had so many years ago. So many years ago, he had been so nervous about losing those rings and yet utterly confident as he had stepped forward to speak those words she had never truly forgotten, their truth ringing inside her when she’d listened and...
Her head snapped up. She looked at Jack in his dark suit she’d requested he wear, a suit that was no longer a disguise or armor. She saw the man she knew had lain underneath the protective layers. Once again felt her heart melt from the warmth in his eyes. She knew now what she would say. Finally. Better late than never, she supposed with a relieved sigh, vowing that phrase would not be the continuing story of her life.
Jack held out his hand and Irina took it. They stood in the bow of the ship as it faced west and out to sea, the sun before them and a warm wind behind them as the captain spoke the short sentences that would bind them together. Jack ran his fingertips up Irina’s arm, touching her golden armband before reaching down to clasp her hands as they repeated the simple responses, Jack’s “I do” was soft and firm; Irina’s “I do” was loud and firm.
Sydney giggled at the volume and strength of her mother’s vow, then at a pointed glance from her quickly buried the lower half of her face in the bouquets she held and looked down at the sparkle of her red shoes peeking out from the hem of her dress. She didn’t need to click her Dorothy shoes to find her way home, she knew now, peeking up to see the captain urging her parents to say their own vows.
Jack began. “Love is patient, love is kind-“
“Love is...” Irina grabbed his hand with all her strength, causing him to pause to look inquiringly at her. Unbelievable, she thought. Utterly unbelievable, but...not. Only with this man, only with her Jack did she have this connection of utter rightness. The way it was meant to be, this gift they’d been given and only now fully unwrapping. She stepped closer until he wrapped his free hand around her, just as he had the first time, but yet different. Then in her fear and anxiety she had needed his support. Now in fulfilled hope, she wanted only to be close to him and feel his love and give her own. “Jack. Love is...”
“Honey?” Jack asked as he felt her heart pounding, hard and slow. So different than the last time. So much better. Her face was excited, not fearful; her skin warm, not clammy; her smile wide and open, not tight and trembling. No fear, no anxiety, just...strength and certitude in her heart and her eyes as she looked up at him, her body relaxed against his. He sighed as he felt her soft curves encased in the sari cloth brush against him, the color a perfect foil for her skin. Beautiful. All of her. Beautiful. “Love is...what?”
“That’s what I was going to say to you.”
“You were? Then why not say it together?” Jack suggested. “Wouldn’t that be...perfect?”
“Yes, but I was going to start earlier in the verse.”
“Then you start.” Jack bent his head and ignoring tradition when it did not suit him, kissed her long and hard on the lips until he could feel their trembling cease. Or, he wondered as he raised his head and saw utter confidence in her face, was it his own trembling?
Irina closed her eyes and focused. She nodded once, then opened her eyes again and spoke, her voice growing stronger with each word. “This is a truth I know. ‘If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.’” She stopped. “This is a truth I know now, a truth upon which I will make my choices in the future. This I promise.”
Jack nodded. “A freely-given promise. The best sort of promise. And this time, this time, I promise...everything I can give. I will trust you with my secrets, I will trust you with my faith in us and our future. I will no longer fear love. I will fight for it.”
Irina nodded in her turn. Jack, like she, was a warrior and a fighter. That was how this second chance of theirs had begun, when he’d made the decision to fight the ghosts of the past with the strength of the present and when she had met his challenge with an unknown strength of her own. “I am ready to continue. Are you?” she asked softly. Jack nodded and then both continued.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away ... And now these things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
“The greatest of these is love,” they finished in unison, so wrapped up in each other’s eyes that they did not notice Dave and Sydney mouthing the words as well as they joined their hands around the couple, creating a circle of love enclosing them all.
“Those were my vows to you. Because I love you, I will have patience and kindness and...everything you want. I hope. But this I know - this time we will not fail,” Jack said softly.
“No. Love will not fail because we will not allow it to,” Irina agreed. “We will have everything this time. Everything.” They reached for each other and kissed, neither of them hearing nor needing to hear the captain pronouncing them husband and wife because for them it seemed as though the stories of their lives had always been woven in an unbreakable chain.
Jack whispered as their lips parted. “I was thrilled to hear you say that you wanted to say that verse. I’d been planning to say those words forever.” She didn’t know yet for just how long, but soon--
“You have? I...have to admit I just realized that they were what I wanted to say. Then I realized how much I had tucked away the memory of Dave’s deep voice saying those words in my memory book, they had always rung through me like an old resonant bell and I heard them...whenever I needed them. I needed them the first time I heard them and... Our first wedding was...not perfect and yet those words cannot be surpassed.”
“Well, then it’s a perfect circle. Taking the best of the past and combining it with the present-“
“To make our future.” Irina sighed and leaned into Jack. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and looked off toward the horizon, where twilight was beginning to bend its rays to kiss the water. “Past, present, future...” She looked down at the clear sparkle of her three largest diamonds. “You, me us. Faith, hope and love.”
“Indeed.” Jack held out his hand and Dave fumbled nervously for the rings. Jack held up Irina’s slim wedding band and told her as he held it so that she could read the inscription, “The gold is from my old band, Dave’s ring, and some new gold.” He smiled at Sydney’s start of surprise as she looked down at her own engagement ring, realizing how they were all bound together in interlocking circles.
“Faith, hope and love,” Irina read in a husky whisper, as she extended her hand.
“Yes. Faith, hope and love - they are what we need,” Jack said softly as he slid the ring down Irina’s ring finger, then reached for her other hand to transfer her engagement ring back to her left hand. “And that is what I vow to always give you - not only what you want, but what you need.”
“That is...perfect,” Irina whispered and held out her hand to Dave for Jack’s ring. Jack’s eyebrow rose in surprise as he read the inscription inside his ring. Irina recited the words aloud as she slid it quickly down his ring finger, “Ia tebia liubliu...Te amo...I love you.”
“I was expecting ‘Moya’,” Jack told her with a small smile as he curled his hand around hers, the new ring glinting up at them in the waning rays of this day’s sun, as it would at the end of every day to come. “The same truth in your own language.”
“I know. That’s one reason why I didn’t do that.” Even though she’d thought about it for quite some time. “But in the end, I thought about why I want and need you to be mine and mine alone.”
“That’s logical,” Jack agreed. He knew that Irina’s journey had included at least one of the lessons he’d had to learn - to identify and value one’s emotions.
“It’s for the same reason that I will stay with you forever. It’s why I will do my best to be not only with you, but for you. It’s why... I will ...I do.... I love you, Jack. That’s all I need to say. Da, it’s all I need to say because those words, now - I know what they truly mean. They are simple, but true.”
“The simplest truths are the best,” Jack said fervently. “In all games, including the game between a man and a woman, the simplest truth is the best. I love you.”
“Ia tebia liubliu...In any language, any where we go - including tonight...” Irina added with a wry smile. “I will always love you.”
Jack smiled. “Then, as now, you gave it to me.”
“Love?”
“No. The perfect weapon.”
“Jack. You promised me that you would tell me what the perfect weapon was during our wedding. You promised me that you would give that to me and...” Irina pulled back to stare intently up at him. “You never break your promises, so...”
“So...I gave it to you twice, actually,” Jack drawled. Bending his head, he whispered, “And I’ll give it to you a third time - at least - when we’re in our bed tonight.”
“Now we’re an old married couple and we need a bed?” Irina prevaricated. What was she missing?
“Well, the location we’ll use tonight does have a hot tub...” Jack whispered.
“A hot tub?” Jack wet? With the jets from a hot tub? Tonight was going to be a spectacular wedding night indeed. Irina’s eyes opened in anticipation, then she narrowed them. “You’re trying to misdirect me. You’re trying to use my own desires against me and...” She stopped.
He had admitted thinking of this grand scheme of his so long ago, that night in Panama. A scheme borne out of a desperate need to end the war between them, so that he could find peace and she was willing to admit, a measure of revenge. A scheme perfectly tailored to her weaknesses, weaknesses only he could exploit. Which would be and... What had she wanted that he alone could give her? That was easy. Love, the infinite love of grace and faith and and... He had given it to her twice tonight and hoped to give it to her a third time.
Three.
Jack loved his circles.
Circles.
The ring.
She gasped as it all became clear.
“Faith, hope and love abide, these three...”
She grabbed his hands and squeezed tightly as she saw the smugness and happiness is his face. She smiled and shook her head. Love and a game with this man, could life be any more perfect? “Love is perfect...” she whispered back. “Faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love. The perfect weapon. That’s it, isn’t it? Faith, hope and love.” She glared up at him, ready to kill him. That was the perfect weapon? That was what she’d waited so long to discover and... She smiled. Well, truthfully it had been worth the wait. Although... She squeezed harder. He needed to be punished, a little.
Jack hid his wince. She was going to break both of his hands with that tight grip of hers and then their wedding night was not going to prove as enjoyable as he’d hoped. And that would be totally unacceptable; having her nurse him was not the game he intended to play tonight. He pulled his hands free and laced them around her waist. “Yes. Faith, hope and love together made the perfect weapon to bring you back to me. Didn’t they?” he asked, tugging on her chain.
She answered by looping her arms around his neck in yet another circle and bringing her mouth to his in a kiss that continued as the sun slipped inside the water.
Irina drained her champagne glass and felt her body mold into the contours of the stuffed chair as she faced the sunset behind Jack and Dave as the ship continued east. “Sydney, do you remember what Dave said the night of the lasagna-“
“Did you ever notice how she titles days in her life?” Dave asked.
“They’re chapters in her memory book,” Jack told him as he poured the last of the champagne into Irina’s glass. It was almost impossible to get her tipsy, but he’d keep trying.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Dave looked over Irina’s shoulder and his eyes narrowed. He nodded almost imperceptibly at Jack.
“I always am.” Jack smiled as Irina snorted.
“Except when you’re not.” Dave grinned. “So, a recent chapter would be, ‘The Night of the Lasagna.' A really old chapter would be, 'The Night of the Necklace-'“
“The night of the necklace?” Irina turned to Jack. “How- Oh, forget about it.”
“Wise idea, honey.” Jack bent across the small deck table and kissed her lips. “Now what were you saying to Sydney about...” Jack lowered his voice to sonorous tones, while Dave began to tap out a loud rhythm. “The night of the lasagna.”
Irina looked over at Sydney and rolled her eyes, while Sydney began to giggle. “Dave. What he said. The night of the lasagna. Is anyone listening to me?”
“I am!” Dave raised his hand. “I am, Mrs. Bristow, Mrs. Teacher. I remember what the wise man, David Caro, said.”
“Oh, spare me.” Irina lifted her glass to her lips again and drank deeply. The mood everyone was in tonight, she’d be better off drinking. Especially given that smug gleam in Jack’s eyes. He was up to something.
“I do too!” Sydney waved her hand around.
“How much have they had to drink?” Irina asked Jack. She stood up, but before she could put the empty glass on a tray, a uniformed waiter appeared and whisked it away.
“Nothing. That’s the scary part.” Jack pulled Irina down onto his lap, so that she was once again facing away from the eastern horison. “Go on. Do go on.” He moved his thighs tipping her further back on his lap. “Yesss, like that. Mrs. Teacher.”
“He said that imagination can lead to illusion and delusion. And...” Sydney sobered. Actually, Dave was correct. Controlling one’s imagination was necessary in certain situations, such as imprisonment. Or imagining what her parents were doing while her mother was wiggling around on her father’s lap. Honestly. Couldn’t they control themselves! “And where were you going with that, Mom?”
“I was going to ask if you could think of a book or two that might lend itself to a classroom assignment on that theme?”
Sydney smiled. “Well, Madam Bovary for one.”
“Madame Bovary?” Dave rubbed his nose. “Wasn't that the name of the owner of that whorehouse in Marseilles, Jack?”
Jack burst into laughter. Seeing Sydney staring at him, he asked, “What is it?”
“It’s just...I will never cease marveling at you laughing like that. After so many years...”
Irina closed her eyes. Seeing Jack laughing like that seemed normal to her, especially when Dave was around. She had not spent twenty years watching him retreat farther and farther into that icy prison encasing him the way Sydney had. To her, the controlled, rigid Jack she had met when she’d first returned had been the anomaly, but for Sydney...
“Keep your eyes closed,” Jack ordered.
“Why?” Irina asked, popping her eyes back open.
Jack chucked. “You can’t take an order, can you...” he asked, while loosening the knot of his tie and slowly drawing it through his collar.
“I can if you know how to use that tie properly...” Irina whispered, watching his hands work. He had wonderful hands.
"Jack." Irina frowned under her blindfold as they waited for Sydney and Dave to return to them. Jack had said only that they were going to check on final arrangements now that they had disembarked and been driven somewhere. Somewhere warm, that she could tell. But that could be half the world! So many damn options. "Are we in public? Are we in public when I have your tie around my eyes?"
"Do you honestly care what people think?" Jack grinned as he pressed his fingertips down the length of her back. He knew where this was going.
"No, but..." Irina trailed off as she realized that in their new life she no longer had to worry about anyone watching her or them and making reports. They were free.
"Oh no, has Miss Modesty had a much-delayed comeback?" Jack chuckled. He tugged on the spill of her hair teasing his hand. There was no longer any need for modesty now that no KGB handler was tagging their steps. "I really think I prefer Miss No Inhibitions, but--"
"Shut up." Irina reached out to slap him, then swore when she missed him. "I swear. I am growing unamused."
"Am I supposed to be growing scared? Well, I suppose that it falls within the duties of my job as your husband to distract you..." Jack said in a silky tone. He waited and allowed his eyes to drift down her sari to see the two hard points of her nipples calling to him.
Irina shivered and waited. She held her breath as she felt Jack’s heat leaning toward her, then his lips, light as the memory of a kiss, brush against her cheek, skimming the edges of her blindfold. Impatient now, she tipped her head up and turning blindly, still managed to capture his lips with her own. “Mine...” she whispered before biting his lower lip, then sweeping her tongue within, forgetting about anyone seeing them, long past the point of caring and then -
"AHEM!" Sydney hissed. “Break it up! We’re in public.”
“Why? That’s never stopped them before,” Dave reminded her.
Irina sighed. She loved them both, but sometimes... “Jack. Can’t we get started on our honeymoon?”
“As you wish.” Jack wrapped his arm around Irina’s waist and led her to an elevator.
Ping
“Only one ping?” Irina asked. “Why only one ping? Are we on the second floor of whatever or- Private elevator. Did I hear you use a key? Was it a private elevator?”
“Yes. Private elevator, honey,” Jack told her. He grinned at Dave and Sydney, who were looking over their shoulders and smiling at Irina’s excitement.
“I don’t like this, Jack,” Irina complained, resisting the urge to tug the blindfold off her face. “Not one bit.”
“Now who’s the one who’s having trouble surrendering control?” Jack teased, allowing his hand to skim over her buttocks, then give her a gentle squeeze.
“Jack!” Irina growled at him. “Behave yourself.”
“You don’t really mean that.” His hand roved back up over her buttocks before settling on her waist to tug on her chain.
“Welll...” Irina felt her smile curve her lips. “Not really. I like it when you misbehave. But then again, I also like how well you take orders...”
“Good. But now it’s time for you to take orders. Stop.” Jack put his hands on her waist and positioned her.
“That’s not the order you usually give me,” Irina managed to say, controlling her anticipation with effort. She could do this, she thought, as Jack slowly- too damn slowly! - pulled her blindfold off. She blinked in the relatively dim lighting of a hallway. Okay, she had expected that. She looked left and right. Only one door on this side of the hall. Hmm. And...She touched the door before her. A heavy wooden door with carvings similar to Querencia’s, but...different. And judging by the sharpness of the carvings it was new. “Did you have this made?”
“I had all of it made for you, for us.” Jack touched her hand as it rested on the door. “Go ahead, Pandora. Open this box.”
Irina pushed open the door and stopped. A room lay in front of her. A room of warm tones and dark woods and thick carpeting and...Wait. She had been here before. But...not. She felt a frisson of knowledge skitter down her spine as her eyes glanced from the wavering light of one candle to another. “Deja vu...” She stepped one foot inside, unsure if her instincts were beckoning her in or warning her or both. But no, that made no sense. Jack was giving her a gift. Something she wanted, he’d told her at one point. “Where are we?”
“Look harder,” Jack urged. Perhaps he should have used more candles or the electric lights, but no. He remembered the sense of enclosure and bright lighting would never do. “What do you see? What do you feel?”
There was a small table and two chairs. A bottle of wine was cradled in a bucket next to two wine glasses. A mirror, a large, new one above a walnut dresser. A bed...A beautiful bed piled high with plush pillows and bedcoverings and...rose petals. Her bouquet. Sydney had taken her bouquet and...there were the rose petals. And there... a hot tub. Just as he’d promised. It was all familiar, but...more so. It was just like then, but now.... "It is the same but different..." Irina whispered. “Plus ca change...”
"It is the same, but...better. Like us, like our marriage.” Jack ran his hand down her back, feeling the slight tremors of her muscles as she absorbed what she was seeing.
“‘Love is not love which alters when alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove. O no! It is an ever fixed mark...’ Shakespeare...” Irina whispered, finding a focus point in an old game. Old games, new games. Past, present, future, all swirled around her. She stared around, not knowing which feature to stare at first, knowing her mouth was agape, but not caring as she tried to decide whether she should laugh or cry. “Jack. I can’t believe what you did.”
Jack smiled. This game plan of his had brought her to a new and unexpected place. Success. How long ago had he planned winning this game with her. He pulled her more tightly against him. He had won indeed, he knew as he felt her soft curves slide against his body and saw the wonder in her eyes. “I bought it. And redid it for you. For us. ”
“You bought it. You... We’re... It’s a do over, but... more. A new start?” Irina asked, still looking around. Was that a wall mosaic of mirror tiles or...No. He wouldn’t have... He wouldn’t have saved them. No. That was so sentimental and fraught with meaning hidden to all but the two of them and...so Jack. She was incredulous at the care and attention to detail he’d...well, of course. Jack was a detail man and... he loved her. This gift was the best kind - unexpected and perfect. The kind only Jack could give her.
She blinked rapidly, seeing the details of the room swim before her eyes and form a picture composed of the past and present unclear to her vision and yet oh so clear to her heart, which so far more clearly.
“Welcome back to Panama, honey. Come inside,” Jack said softly, taking her by the hand and leading her to a room so deep with memories she lost her breath. “Come back to Panama with me.”
TBC at Chapter 2017: Part 3: 4 of 6