Sweet Lady Jane
It wasn't the first time I had slept under the stars, with nothing but a thin ceiling of fabric and an inefficient mosquito net separating me from all that was wild and alive and beautiful around me. The tall willow, its branches weeping into the lake; a deep shore and a shallow middle. The faintly roasted shoots of grass flattened under our base. The sun's last twinkles dancing like fireflies across the water's surface. The rustle of birds and rodents in the fields, the trees, the partially visible underground. Still, it felt like a new awakening when I opened my eyes and my senses to a slug journeying across my bare feet early in the morning, its slime trailing behind it like a layer of myself I had shed overnight. I launched into the lake, headfirst and without thinking, knowing there was but an empty depth there to catch and cradle me. When I finally came up for air, rubbing my eyes clean of sleep, my system shocked, awake, I looked out on to the shore I had abandoned and replayed the scenes of the previous night in my head. Right there, in the shady spot between the willow and the tent. Where I first met her.
The sun had begun to set its subtly golden glow onto this hideaway, this quiet oasis others did not recognize as such. Possibly because nothing about it was convenient. The walk through overgrown reed, the climb over rusty old fencing. The uneven plateau circumventing the water, an intricate landscape of swollen, far-reaching roots and unmovable rocks. The lack of amenities in its proximate radius requiring pre-planning for a comfortable experience; drinks, food, blanket, some multi-functional paper towels. A shovel, perhaps. We had found the perfect dent in the ground, shaped almost like a hammock, between two large and bumpy, unbraided roots. We arranged our blanket in it, throwing some of our clothes on top of the thicker parts of the stems to create makeshift pillows. As my friend started relaxing into this next instalment of the evening spilling into the night, the transition was as noticeable in them as it was in our surroundings. Many of the sounds that had been accompanying us throughout the afternoon were slowly muting, while others picked up in volume. Crickets rubbing their scrapers, their invitational tune, letting all females know, the tone had been set. And so had theirs. With nothing but imminent slumber on the agenda, my friend decided to match the twilight zone we had landed in. Not quite night, no longer day. That's when she first made her appearance.
Out of nowhere - or at least that's how I perceived it. Planted herself right between us, on our blanket, hair dry and bristling from a summer's worth of rays, an earthy aroma enveloping her. I didn't have to ask; it was clear they knew each other - intimately - inside and out. Their touch so familiar on her sun-kissed skin, so attuned to her wants and needs. How to wrap her in fresh skins, when the light finally dimmed and a cool, hazy mist rose from the water. How to ignite her when night finally fell and they wanted to set it ablaze. With their bodies light and tickled, their minds free and open. Creativity and sexuality, merging like the river with the ocean, fluid and unabridged. They shared it all with me, with few words but all the sensations. It was in the air. I could see it in their eyes, lids heavy and watching her rise from under their fingertips and into the canopy of trees above them, awestruck. I could feel the power of her philosophical being melt from the soft ember of her lips and her thick thighs and drop onto the ground beneath us. Felt the urge to sweep up every particle she left in her wake and summon her again and again. I had not yet felt what it was like to gently massage her flowery bud with my fingers - careful not to make her crumble under the delightful pressure too quickly. Cherishing the ritual, instead. I could taste it though, as I watched them, inconspicuously, go through the motion. A flavour I could not define but wanted to feast on. That's when I knew, some day, I too would succumb to her intrigue.
*
Three years later, another country, another era, another version of myself, a different body of water. The moon full, my heart vacant, my stomach perpetually nauseated. My legs dangling from a dock; an experience I desperately wanted to enjoy but felt disassociated from. As if summoned, subconsciously, by me, she sidled up behind me; here, of all places, as if by magic. I immediately recognized her - those pheromones that alerted all nerve-endings in my body, that took me back to that night, many years ago. To a time when the respect I felt for her was too akin to fear; to when I understood that, once she baited me, I would fall madly, compulsively in love. I would be hooked, forever, with no possible release. Now here she was, now that the fear had boiled down into an ever-simmering concoction of anxiety, and I was weirdly ready to jump into the deep end and swim, open-mouthed, toward her lure. Ready to bite down hard, if she wanted me to, suck tenderly if she so desired, until she pulled me up into her embrace. I longed to sit in it, the weight of her arms heavy around my chest, and to look out onto the world with her, a shared perspective, with one lash in, one lash out of the realm of reality. Reading my body language, she brushed the tip of my nose with her finger. Barely touching, hovering just close enough to show me all it is she could do to me. That's when she smiled, suggestively, reassuringly, letting me know she would meet me half way.
Our love story began right there, on the dock, above muddy waters, besides lush grass, below the full moon and a few sparkling stars. The words did not flow evenly, at first, with cold feet halting the natural circulation of things, only to kickstart again within infinite seconds, joltingly, apologetically. The patience we gifted one another remains unmatched, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and haven't since. There was no room for pressure, just the exhilaration of knowing all that lay waiting somewhere in the light reflecting onto the canal, pitch black, its depths as unknown to us as we were to one another. The vaguely present familiarity strong enough to keep us staring down into the abyss, ready to dizzy ourselves, to accept the spiralling path we were choosing, knowing it would be full of as much magic as it would be torment. The kind of ache that is exquisite. We did not get lost in the details of our clumsy beginnings, much rather in the joy they brought about. The innocence we knew was going to be so circumstantial to these first moments. When, at some point, we moved back just enough to land in the field behind us, the back of my t-shirt immediately sealed to my skin with midnight dewdrops, it was as if to breathe in fresh energy, drawn from the same electric source I had been tapping into all night. That's when she kissed me.
There had been no real expectations; just an undeniable curiosity. When it happened, the earth did not begin to quake, nor did the back of my eyelids erupt in a display of fireworks. It was a profoundly beautiful sigh of relief; like the very peak of a climax without the before or after. Just the timelessness of two minds, two bodies, two souls dispersing from the here and now, the there and then, and existing in simply being. We did not intertwine like the roots that chaperoned our first encounter by the lake, two did not become one. We revelled in keeping a minimal distance, teasing that magnetic field between us, challenging ourselves to resist, delighting in submission and withdrawing again to feel, fight and quiver in its poles. Our breathing fell in with the rhythm of the water softly lapping against the shore and the docked fisher boats while the night drew us into its hold. As though we were the only people existing in this moment. Every now and then she stopped caressing my chest with her warmth and featherlight kisses, to look searchingly into my eyes and localize my soul's wanderings. To make sense of my dilated pupils as orbits in our own galaxy; of my swelling in our own ocean.
*
The intensity between us was at an all-time high for the first two years of our relationship. The laughter she inspired in me leaving me with blissful tears streaming down my face, breath caught behind my ribcage, belly left aching for days after. In shock. Where had it been hiding all this time? From whence stemmed the pain that came gushing out from the very same ducts, a silent companion to this fusion wetting my cheeks. A crust of salt chasing streaks of requisite release. I loved her contradictive nature. How she reached into my skull and exported all that was stale. Packed all my baggage neatly into a canon and fired it into the universe, to explode like colourful sprinkles onto my buttered toast. My empty page. My dormant pleasure. Then, often, within the same moment, raked all the debris back up into a package, tied tightly with a bow as sparkling as all my accumulated trauma, arranged it in my eyeline and sat on it, watching the contents squeeze from the sides and ooze right back into my heart. Watching me plummet back into myself and closing the doors on everyone including myself. Excluding her. The sadist to my masochist. The blossoming flower to my dry, crackling leaves. Or was it the other way around? I don't know and I prefer not to taint the memory with realism, romanticise the reality with memory. I will love her forever, dearly. For all her witchery and unintentional curses.
We should have kept it at a sporadic fling through the months of spring. A regular rendezvous on crisp autumn evenings. Steamy nights to celebrate the winter solstice and new beginnings. I was happy to share her with others, proud even, to pass her perfect form between us, and to watch her assume her position on the altar while we all fell to our knees in worship. But I could not let her go for more than a day; and only during the light of it. As soon as the evening and the end of the societal, nine-to-five structure collapsed, I was overcome by jonesing jitters, my desire for her was purely irresistible. She always met me with the same love and lust, arcadian within the chummy walls of our own creation. At first. Usually. Once our affections became more routine than titillating, an innate prickliness persuaded her to prod and poke all that was painful until I was too paralyzed to demand anything else from her. Instead, I would leave her smouldering on the other side of the table, make the bare minimum of contact, until I was forced to rekindle anything salvageable for fear of the spark dying completely. It never did. I think of her as fondly now as I did when she was merely a concept that was unreachable to me.
Today, three years since our separation, I can't say I miss her any less. I can still sense her presence in the eyes and slur of my friends; pick up on her scent like a police dog on a mission; still yearn for the ritual of our lovemaking between my fingertips. And, at times, I fantasize about discarding all that I have learned about my addictive personality and everything else this wise, wonderful woman has taught me, finding her, ripping everything from her budding body to reveal only her essence and ravishing her. Then leave her, unfinished, unmoving, somewhere in my close vicinity, staring at the ceiling and my bloodshot eyes, begging me for just one more hit. Just one last kiss to make that flower blossom. I like to think of myself walking away, cold and indifferent to all that we were, and all that she is now. Knowing that I would never have the heart nor the willpower. So, I keep her firmly locked in my fantasy world, and well up with nostalgia whenever I catch her wafting into my abstemious dimensions. Oh, how I miss her. My sweet lady, Jane.
