The faint echo of footsteps, and, I, drawn - by some invisible, magnetic force -found myself walking into the sound. unsure of why, or what or who. I could feel it, growing stronger as I drew nearer. Intoxicating … intense … and, then … the tangy, piquish aroma of Brut.
He wore a fresh, crisp uniform, complete with 4-bar epaulets and silver wings. A pilot. A tall, brooding character with a luscious head of silver-splattered, dark curls and intensely glacial green eyes. He flashed me a Mona Lisa smile. I savoured it like velvety brandy. I stood facing him - motionless, holding my breath - and reached into the depths of his honey-flecked green irises with my own gaze.
So close, close enough to smell, touch, taste him. Yet, so much of him remained hidden from my view, lurking amid the soft shadows of the curves in his face. His expression eluded me. A, vague, mysterious, yet intimately familiar, aura oozed from his pores: captivating … enchanting. I found myself breathless. My heart galloped. Desire sat, like a stone, in my throat. Silence - soothing, unobtrusive.
We, each unable, or unwilling, to utter a single sound. His touch - filled with warmth and gentle certitude - sent a shiver down my spine and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Our breathing synchronized. I interlocked the fingers of my cold, alabaster hand with his long, sinewy fingers. We walked through the nearest door.
Utility closet. I: my back against the cold steel door - swept into his torrent -bound, by some hypnotic force. He: gently gliding his fingertips along my bare arms, following each curve, each undulation, painting his touch onto my skin. He fingered the diamond on my wedding set, then bending slightly, kissed my hand. He closed his eyes as his lips brushed against the back of my hand and his warm, gentle breath soaked into my skin.
A sigh - his - of tender longing, as I touched his cheek tentatively with my fingertips. The hush of his breath through my hair sent tingles surging through my body as he scattered tiny kisses along my throat. Silent. Spellbound. Peeling away layers of clothing, revealing delicate, ripe flesh. Pulsing, throbbing flesh. Pressed against each other now - skin against skin. I could feel his heart beating, as if in search of mine.
Skin against skin. Surge, electrifying. I: a vessel, felt him inside me … throbbing, engorged. He filled my cavern with his sweet, milky essence. Holding my breath. I waited to exhale. Rapture, along with the slow, soft trickle of infinitesmal beadlets of sweat. Panting. Breathless. Silent . We carefully pieced ourselves back together, layer upon layer. Silence remained. A thick, hot passion lingered, an after-effect of our brief, but intensely intimate fusion. We stood, studying each other, in suspended animation. I tried to memorize each line, each curve, each shadow of his face. I would keep an etching of him in my soul. We parted with a kiss.
Pangs of guilt soaked into me, like a slow, steady rain, as I sat in my plane seat, reading a piece in some daily british rag about John Major’s extramarital affair. The irony did not escape me. Reality settled upon me like a thick, soupy fog. Guilt. Corroding my consciousness. Guilt. I felt as though each beat of my heart told the tale, though my husband seemed blissfully ignorant. And I told myself, 'why shouldn’t he be?'
I sensed the rise of quiet contemplation and controlled anticipation in my husband as he fingered the outline of his Camel pack through his shirt pocket. I could see the wheels turning - he pondered seeing his brother for the first time in a decade. i felt the anticipation bubbling, foaming, frothing as the plane began its descent toward our quaint, mediterranean destination.
Butterflies. Panic. I felt swept into a throng of human cargo, pressed into the aisle of the small plane and down its steep, narrow steps.
Nervous. Pit of my stomach nervous. Seized by wild anticipation. We made our way across the tarmac and into the tiny, two-storey terminal building. Customs. Luggage claim. Frenzied excitement clings to me, stifling me. The guilt - it falls away. In the moment I cast my gaze downward to flick my wild mane over my shoulder, I heard the rustle of an embrace as the two brothers pecked each other on the cheek. Still looking at the speckled floor, I felt it again. Intoxicating, intense. But … how? Nothing could prepare me for what I saw when I cast my eyes on my brother-in-law: the intense, glacial green eyes. And, that smile: elusive, vague. My Mona Lisa man.
He stood near the door inside the small terminal building. A single shoulder bag sat on the floor, at his feet. He wore a blue jacket over his crisp white shirt, 4-bar epaulets and pilot’s wings glowed in the streaming midday sun. My heart danced, skipping a beat when we touched in an embrace. His lips gently brushed my cheek. The hush of his breath in my hair. A flash of goosebumps - mine - and his hands traced the curves of my body, like they had visited these places before.
His touch stirred in me a deep, desperate longing. Longing that lurks in the dark recesses of a shattered heart. A longing I thought I could deny, when I thought I’d never see my Mona Lisa Man again. Now, this longing haunted me. A restless ghost, enticing me, beckoning me, teasing me. His voice - exotic, european - enveloped me like warm, rich chocolate. Creamy, sweet, smooth . So tantalizing, leaving me thirst for more … more … and … more. My mouth felt hot and dry and desire burned in my lips.
We three rode through the small mediterranean town, to his lonely, high rise apartment. We talked about regret, estrangement, and the dark despair of grieving. He spoke tenderly of his wife’s death from cancer three months ago, his self-imposed estrangement from his family during her final days and disownment by his son and daughter for failing to witness his wife draw her last breath.
My husband remained silent, the kind of silent that comes from feeling choked, as I solemnly recounted the details of our youngest son’s untimely demise. The words tumbled from my lips, sailing on a stream of regret, longing and cavernous loneliness as I recalled a loss that could only be described as ‘plucked away’ - as in a large, bright and deeply-rooted feather deliberately plucked from a bird’s plumage.
I did not speak of my husband’s inability and unwillingness to conceive of parenting anything ever again, his oppressive despair at this crushing blow, or the bitter taste of what-could’ve-been that resided in his kisses and lingered on his tongue. All of these things lurked in the lines and angles of his face and lived in the undulations of his voice. I did not speak of the oppressive sorrow, grief over the loss of our youngest son, that extinguished the passion which once fired our marriage. Or the desperate emptiness I felt as I wallowed in its charred remains.
I think these resided in our tentative physical contact: the way each flinched reflexively when touched by the other, as though stung. I contemplated all these things I failed to speak of, as we silently disembarked the taxi and waited for the lift. In these moments, grief settled upon us all like flour settles on damp skin. Tension lived in all the silent moments that followed. Heavy. Weighty. Oppressive. I pondered silently now that I understood the intimate familiarity, the enchantment, the captivation - the magnetism of the connection I had forged in that utility closet with my Mona Lisa man.
In the days that followed our arrival, the hot desert sun seemed to melt the tentative sorrow that made our connecting so painful. If only for a few hours, we savoured the each other's quiet company, as we trekked up the Rock, visiting the barbery apes. We spoke of our setting - searing heat, chic-chaks, drinking from Coke cans labelled in South Africa, the awe of standing at the southern-most point of europe and looking out, across the Strait of Gibraltar, to the continent of Africa.
We did not speak of all those things lingered like a pungent aroma. Grief, rage, regret, the kind that bind a spirit so tightly it grows numb. This sick craving growing inside me - the one that makes me want to replace the child I've lost. Seeking ... anything at all ... to fill the gaping, ugly hole that remained in death's wake. We did not speak of the child we still had - the surviving son.
The child who fell away, like a grain of sand falls through fingers. The child who seemed to lose his parents when his brother died, and who hides his anguish beneath a sea of anger that strikes others the way a shard of glass strikes a plump, ripe tomato. The child I found myself unable to look at. In his young, tender face lurked the ghost of his brother. In silent shame I wondered how many mothers found themselves unable to look at their own child. I also wondered how mothers who had lost could continue mothering. I ... could not.
On those days we spent exploring, my Mona Lisa man spent time with his sail boat, preparing her for the year's first trip. Evenings unfolded in random, unpredictable ways. But always, desire hung in the balance while the three of us spent time together. Lust and longing cast a deep, dark shadow, colouring every droplet of time. On other days, I withdrew, taking time to explore the town, while the brothers spent time rebuilding what time and the winds of life had eroded. Seeing them side-by-side, these two men who have explored the most tender curves of my being, simply took my breath away. It seemed so clear. And at the same time, so very murky.
I found my heart contemplating possibilities it long had forsaken. The sun, it seemed, shone on an entirely new corner of my life - a cusp. I silently wondered how long it had been since I glimpsed such a bright sun. It blinded me, in a way. Gazing into its glaring ribbons of fire - it felt elucidating and obscuring all at once.
In my sweet solitude, thoughts strayed to the pilot-sailor, and the passions he ignited in my soul. The sadness, the grief, the loneliness fell away from me, the way sand falls thru fingers. Gentle hope settled upon me refreshing, like a long spring rain. Extinguished - that scorching ache and restless longing. I realized that I had long lived inside my grief and rage, like a spring shut up or a fountain sealed. Did passion seed itself inside me? I felt it burgeoning. Like a geyser. Inside me. Oh darling ... kiss me with the kisses of your mouth.
copyright velvet acid 2006
