Tonight it is him and me and the stars. We are stretched on the hood of his jeep, falling into ecstasy with the ebb and flow of the wind and the throbbing crickets.
He looks into my eyes and tells me, love.
Right there with my cotton skirt pushed way up past my waist I am falling into reckless abandonment and I now and forever sever my pact with logic.
A breathless week later and my world is still spinning. I lie in the half dark of his room, my accomplice having snuck away with the extra key a quarter of an hour ago. It's my first time in lingerie and for some reason I can't get used to the feel of chiffon against my skin.
Footsteps on the stair, awkwardly I contort myself into what I can only imagine is an alluring pose. Voices, two of them. Frozen the seconds take an eternity as his key fumbles in the lock and the door springs open. She is beside him, full figured and coquettishly staring up at him; everything I'm not. Staring, my voice catches in my throat. Spluttering, I find vowels finally, and string them together.
"She's beautiful."
Now, I'm a dove.
The man and his sister stand motionless, staring at the mussed bed and drapes blowing in the slight breeze.
34th and Lexington
15 years ago
