Losing My Religon

This is kind of personal, but fuck it, ya'll seem nice. Besides, we're all kind of like friends here, neh? What could possibly go wrong?

So, I have had a certain...appreciation...for accents. British, Spanish-as in from Spain, certain African and Asian, southern...not the hillbilly hump-your-cousin, but the southern belle. Oh yes. The first girl I ever fell in love with had a voice of moonlight and magnolias. To this day, I hear honeychild or dearheart in that certain accent, and my knees go all kinds of wobbly. It's kind of vulgar, actually.

Back the first summer I was dancing with the dead for money, one of my associates decided she was at least vaguely sweet on me. Maybe it was the hair. Whilst I didn't think she was ugly, there were circumstances in my life, which would have made going out on a date with her a bad scene. Even if those circumstances hadn't existed, as I told another compatriot somewhat jokingly, I might have only fucked her in an alleyway, not let her into my home. So it goes.

But, said vaguely sweet on me girl knew I had that...appreciation...for accents. Maybe it came up in conversation. I no longer recall. Once, during a stand of dancing with the dead for money, she decided the rest of the proletariats needed to know this.

"If you ever want to get him hot just say something in a southern accent," she said in a hillbilly hump-your-cousin accent. Nauseating.

I growled, and not in a happy way. As fate would have it, I had to ask her something about a case. So, I marched up to her desk, and dropped into a crouch right next her ear.

"Was it really fucking necessary to mention one of my fucking quirks in the middle of the fucking call center?" I hissed.

She turned five different shades of red, began fanning herself, and ran out of the room giggling. It was kind of funny to watch, actually. Tit for tat, call it a whim. When she was running out of the room, the overseer, who'd been out on a break was coming back in and gave me a look.

"What did you do to her?" Like this was somehow all my fault.

"Nothing really," I said with a shrug. "Other than provide an education on civilized behavior."

Fast forward about a year and half or slightly more later...

Somewhere around the time I'd helped Sabina, move the the Nostalgic New Orleans residence after her break-up from the musician, she asked me about the time I made that associate turn five different shades of red and why I snarled when a southern accent was brought up in the context of getting me hotter than Georgia asphalt. It was kind of personal, but fuck it, Sabina was nice to me. After all, she was one of my best friends at the time.

What could possibly go wrong?

It was the day after Saint Patrick's day. Depending on which side of a timezone one was on, my father's mother had been dead for at least a day, or perhaps a day and half. Time is an abstract, which moves differently for me. The next day, I was going to be traveling by air with my siblings to help our father bury his mother.

I had just sat down at my desk and was logging in for a stand of dancing with the dead for money when Sabina came sauntering up. Not but a week before, after a confusing and annoying phone call, I had made a remark about her having a shot. There was a glint in her big doe eyes, which shine like abalone shells.

"And how are you, Sir?" Sabina started, her talent for mimicry had given her an accent of moonlight and magnolias.

"You sick?" I asked her.

"No, Sir," Sabina said. "Why do you ask?"

"Because it sounds like there's something wrong with your voice," I said. There were pheromones in the air.

"I don't think there's anything wrong with my voice," she said, leaning closer. "Do you?"

And she went on talking. I think it had something to do with what we might go and do after the stand of dancing with the dead for money. Coffee or a shared bottle of wine or getting me ready for my trip to the down south, a sunrise away. Honestly, I wasn't rightly paying attention. I, instead, was concentrating on the sound of my talons raking across my desktop.

"I think you need to get the fuck away from me," I said. I was feeling...frustrated .

"Why, Sir, I don't understand why," Sabina said in that mutherfuckingvoice .

"You know, if I wasn't secretly in love with you, I'd stab you in the gall bladder right now," I said quite frankly.

And that's the moment everything changed...

Sabina's jaw went slack. Her back stiffened. There was a sparkle in those big doe eyes that shine like abalone shells. Slowly, a bit of a smile appeared.

"Really?" She asked in her own voice. My waxmoon reptile eyes locked with her's.

"Oh no, I've said too much," I said slowly and with an even tone. "But maybe I haven't said enough. That'll be me in the corner, losing my religion."

And if you were to ask Sabina about how we got together, getting on some years ago now, she would say it was all my fault. Some who shot john about me mentioning amore under the auspice of a serious, or at least somewhat comedic, wounding. She would mention that's when the trouble started.

Yet, I wasn't the one who came sauntering up to me with the come-and-get-me look in the eyes and all talking funny-like. I will often mention this. But, because it's all about balance, I figure it had to play out that way; she had to say something to me in a funny voice and I had to go and lose my religion.

Not like it was at all romantic. Just part of the story. After all, what kind of a romantic says they'll stab someone in the gall bladder for speaking in accent of moonlight and magnolias?