A Tale of Light and Love

HER

 

In the heart of a cold winter night, where silence wrapped its fingers around the throats of all passersby and a blue lamplight lingered humbly behind the frame of their windowpane, she opened her legs and signaled Jacob to feel the wetness between her thighs. Upon this invitation he at first stayed solemn, then rushed to pleasure the girl with the eagerness of a man who hadn't bedded a woman in years. She smiled and closed her eyes and prepared to shut off her brain, yet despite the efforts to remain focused, a collage of images suddenly flooded her weary mind.

 

(she thought of the time where she had fucked a friend atop a mountain in Switzerland, the euphoric moment reducing the vastness of nature to a room wherein only her and her lover could reside - a label which he had not yet acquired at the time. The two were in fact free from labels all together and had only been good friends, but when they stood side by side, gazing at the lands below and at the rimless horizon veiled in a pinkish hue, they were reminded of their own fading existence and were not to let the seconds and the hours pass them by. Thus they undressed and fucked and a tender breeze blew as if to say that nature too agreed with their impulsive act)

Amidst her reveries she suddenly felt Jacob's pulse sending tremors of pleasure through her body.

He was already inside her.

"He always f***s with a sense of purpose", she thought to herself, as if with each thrust of his pelvis he tried to say that they belonged to each other, that f*****g somehow made them whole. No words needed to be spoken, they were conveyed well enough through his movements and the way he looked into her eyes.

  

 As he increased the speed of his thrusts sweat beads formed upon her back and her neck, her chest now heaving and her mouth quivering in pleasure. She pressed her lips together just in time to keep herself from screaming, and with her fingernails she etched a mark onto Jacob's back that spoke of lust and passion.

  

 Her mind began to wander once again through caverns of disjointed memories, each one containing just as much beauty as the one that came before. She was confused and knew not where to stop, and her heart longed to experience anew all the pains and pleasures it had already endured. Unable to relive those moments, however, she decided to quench her thirst by opening the gates of her soul and calling forth all the things that brought joy into her life.

  

 And it was after this decision that she opened her eyes to look into her lover's gaze and let him know that their love and their closeness would last forever, a fact of which she herself was uncertain. Yet this uncertainty further kindled the flame of her love, however momentary and brief, and such was the nature of all her affairs: memories that many a year from now she would recall only to remind herself that she had lived a fulfilling life.

 

 The gears in her brain ceased to churn and she and Jacob both reached apexes of pleasure. Then he rolled off to his side of the bed. Then she sighed and yawned and turned her back to him. She would fall asleep with the memory of that night, a thought that beckoned a smile to her face. She felt him trace her shoulder blades and the outline of her backbone. She felt him gently kiss the nape of her neck that was still damp with sweat.

  

 She closed her eyes and let herself traverse through the curtain that separated dreams from reality into a land where happiness awaited her arrival, where monogamy was but a tired tradition and polygamy the gateway to self-discovery, where humans could grow wings and fly into an infinite horizon, soaring through the blue sky toward a sun that never fell from grace.

                                                              

him

  

 In the heart of a cold winter night a crimson flower bloomed in the garden of his mind. Jacob stood amidst the pool of light created by the street lamp and as he waited for his taxi he shot quick glances at the window of the house whence he had emerged just minutes ago and with each glance he was reminded of his acute affection for Matilda. He smiled and shivered for his windbreaker was made of a thin fabric that failed to keep out the cold, and as he trembled he thought of the day that was to follow and how he needed to get ready and go to work in only a few hours, and he thought about his job and whether he enjoyed it or not until his attention was seized by a rather peculiar sight: in the windowpane illuminated by the blue shade of Matilda's lamplight he made out the contours of two figures as if the thin sheet of glass was a veil and behind it a part of his life was playing out like a silent film and he was merely the audience. The two figures, one of which belonged to Matilda, merged and dislodged and twirled and twisted until they disappeared from sight and Jacob knew not what to think but deep within him he felt a tinge of pain all too familiar and he longed for his heart and his soul to be freed from this whirlpool of confusion and he longed to fly away to a land where the only person who knew him was Matilda. They would simply sit and stare at nothing while silence and the serenity of their solitude engulfed them and they would make love and sit again in silence without the need to talk or laugh or cry. He would leave behind all the people he loved and despised and let them live with their ignorance and die for their futile ideals and he would carry with him all his pains and illnesses for he knew that Matilda's touch was enough to cure all his ills. His smile widened at the mere thought of such ventures for he was weary of playing the role of Sisyphus and he was tired of a generation who had been too caught up in their own evolution to remember the primeval beings we once were; they had forgotten the need to be with others. He was tired of seeing billboards and commercials that told him how to be happy and how he needed to travel the world for his eyes to truly open up to reality while all he ever wanted was to be left alone in a room with Matilda and a bottle of wine that numbed his core and all he wanted was to feel her and breathe in the odor of her sweat and skin. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car engine and within seconds he saw the taxi turning around the bend and the headlights floated in the darkness of that winter night like two watchful eyes and they grew bigger as the car got closer.

Then the engine quieted down and the cab came to a halt and Jacob opened the door and got inside and gave the driver his home address. On the way to his house all the billboards and the trees and the buildings whizzed past the car window and eventually merged into a thin streak of light gold and blue and red. The night was wounded by the blade of light, silence betrayed by the occasional horns and drunken bouts, but none of that mattered for Jacob had become one with the only person who could save him from himself, he had become one with Matilda.

He smiled and closed his eyes.