Beauty is power, a smile is its sword. John Ray.
I’ve heard stories of great men who have fallen, struck down by the gentle touch of a woman’s beauty. I believed them to be just stories, highly exaggerated. Until the day i met her.
Her name was Viola, a queen not by birth or heritage, but by beauty. She was young, vibrant and very alluring. She had long hair, red as rose, her eyes were blue with a touch of green, her nose, her lips, her face, perfect in every way, an epitome of beauty. Her smile, her looks, tore through the heart of men like a sword, her kiss, her touch, enchained the strongest, an enchantress. Was married six times, men enslaved by her beauty, cursed by love to do her bidding, drained, with not even an offspring to their name. A beauty so costly.
The first moment i saw her, glowing in that red dress, i was intrigued. I gazed, i felt my heart beat quicken, was lost in the lust for her. So blinded by love, that in the third month of our romance, I proposed, and she accepted. A romance so brief, a marriage so short, only a means to leech me of my gold. I have become the seventh, another blinded by her beauty, the Viola curse. I had become a slave of love.
At the onset, I believed I had a hold of it all, that I was in control. Until I bought her a purse, a house, and then her name, in my will and all that I own. Her love was false, our romance with fault, built on gold, gold I no longer possess, so she left. I fear many more will fall, men of strength, of power and wealth, humbled by her touch.
So i tell you, beware of beauty. Beauty that makes a man go against his kin, beauty that bore war and blood amongst kings and kingdoms, made men disobey God, and even caused angels to descend. I tell you, never undermine the power of a woman’s beauty.
It took me more than a while to break free of her chains. Had the scales ripped from my eyes, her strings loosed, only then did I realize how far, how deep, I had sunk. Had to struggle to float again, never actually fully recovered. A portion of me is gone, ripped away. Mother warned me, she saw what I couldn’t, but I never listened. I never believed love to be blind, till she came my way.
I heard she got engaged to another, shortly after our separation. Would you blame us men, moved by what we see. A kiss from here, a touch from there, and our walls of masculinity comes crumbling.
Truth is, if I had the chance to relive those moments, undo the past, I still wouldn’t change a thing. I’m glad to have had her as my own, even for those brief moments.
Emmalase.
Emmalase