Ballerino

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It continued here.

Here's where it left off before this bit.

“Another glass of wine, please.”

I tried to take in a breath, but all air had been sucked out of everywhere except around her. Heat shivers rose from her hair. Or maybe that was stardust from the ceiling. Which broke the spell and let me lean for the wine.

I sipped in air, trying to keep my hand steady, but I double-tinked her glass anyway. A freight-train rush of desire flashed through me. When I pulled the bottle back, a drop of bloody velvet escaped, falling to pool, thick on the backward bend of her knee. She laughed, as if we had already made love, as if we were old lovers, as if we had history leading back to grey memory.

Leaning back, she moved her knee back to snug against the couch, and the drop quivered, escaping its tensile prison and marking a trail to somewhere lush and hidden. Insanely, I thought of how to remove winestains from brocade.

Another burst of stomping sent a dash of golden rain between us. Somehow, this became the thunder of my desire, the preamble to the lightening that gathered, one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thou-- I pushed my fingers into the bend of her knee, safe, perhaps, safe enough. Her intake of breath sounded thunder-strong, and my thunder breath answered hers, sound on sound.

She handed me her glass, and with another flash of red, she lifted from the couch, her skirt peeled back. I set both of our glasses on the table as she reached for my hand. The frenzied ballet above measured the closeness of the coming storm: three-one thousand, four-- I took her hand.

The air shimmered around us both, now, the heat of the wine, the gathering summer storm. I turn toward her, slipping my hand around her waist, moving against her, her scent -- lavender and ocean -- fills me, and suddenly we are together. The moist softness of her lips evokes the lightening flashes. The crazy sound storm above matches our wild movement, waves of breath in, sighs out. The moaning clutching paired with unbearably, heartbreakingly tender strokes. In that moment and the next, we inhabit the same magic space.

Then, that moment passed into the next, and the silent question passed in the newly formed distance between us. What was to be the progression of our tempest? A volley passed or in play? An invitation? Yes? Yes! Would she? Would I? Will we?

The silence of the world above mirrored our pause, a comma in the turmoil.