Cielo

… And she reached for the same rose patterned champagne flute that she always did when he was home. She had brought them home in her lap, cradling them in a small box all the way back on the plane from Paris. She looked over at him, sipping champagne from the bottle, she shook her head smirking.

       “Oh, whatever will I do with you?” She questioned, only half meaning. It. He gave her his cynical crooked toothed smirk, he knew it melted her insides.

       “Kiss me,” he simply stated. She did. She picked up the champagne flute she’d temporarily forgotten about and poured them each a glass. He beckoned for her to sit in his lap, she obeyed.

       “So how long do I have you this time?” She inquired.

       “How long do you want me?” He asked. She contemplated the response.

       Forever, she thought. She was soon struck with the implications of these conditions and remembered his lesson to her on permanence and possession.

       “Surprise me,” she finally concluded. He kissed her with a promise. They cheered and took a healthy sip of champagne. He had taught her to acquire a taste for it, and when he left, it became a tantalizing experience, almost like a promise that he would return home. Even if for the briefest moment she would have him once more; and thus never knowing how many nights he would assign to her before returning to Germany.

       “Let’s go on a walk, lovely,” he whispered. He always used strange syntax, as though he had been ejected from an early-1900s romance novel. A night walk with him came to be her favorite time of day. Under the stars of the city, through the beach home ridden streets, they would make their way straight to the ocean, where they would speak in soft sweet nothings about this or that. Their conversations were like a blind dance, spinning around the subject of interest with their voices, while failing, falling into each other, and succumbing to their physical predispositions.

       In the morning she would awake tangled in his arms. She noticed that he would smile instead of sigh when he opened his eyes. The moment he would wake he would be smiling, almost laughing, at his own private joke. If she gently nudged him, he would not be startled, but instead would laugh himself to life. She had never met a person whose instinct was to beam instead of frown upon their inconveniences. Before every sentence or question he would take a pregnant pause, smiling, almost convincing you he was going to ignore your question, not respond; and finally, a random, all too insightful response, would be given. The question could have been:

       “Would you like a glass of water? “

To which he would reply:

       “Roll on out.”  

       They arrived at the cold and windy sand mine–the beach. They stumbled and giggled, tripping over themselves, bumping shoulders regularly. They would collide like atoms, then float away, and eventually come together again.

       “I don’t know why you walk like that,” he chuckled.

       “It’s because we are electrically drawn to one another.”

       Lust had never been so prevalent. It stirred up her insides, sealing her up in an embrace and tossing her off the nearest cliff. Falling, falling, never landing-suspended on the silk tentacles of the jellyfish in time. She felt naked around him. Despite being fully clothed he looked at her as though she wore only a thin veil before her. She felt transparent, reflecting the morphing beauty that his mind's eye saw. He was mystifying to her, and now as she thinks of him while he is away, she cannot recall his face by memory. He was a secret, only found on the shores of beaches and sexy places, places where beautiful women lived.

       He was hers to share eternally, like Goldmund the traveler was to all of his lovers, and she was an impossible lover.

       “Swim with me!” She untied her shirt, her boots, slipped out of her skirt, and dashed in slow motion towards the ocean.

       “The water is freezing! It’s perfect!” He laughed, and threw his shirt onto the pile of her forgotten clothes. He jumped in after her, sweeping her up but immediately tipping them into the frozen Pacific Ocean. Salt water and sand swept into her mouth and nose, they both came up laughing, and snorting and coughing, gasping for air between them. He gripped her tightly, not letting her float too far from him, and she clung to him, feeling the strength of his arms for when the nights she lay awake trying to remember anything about him.