Their
lips touch. In the back of her mind she
thinks, ‘I feel wanted. But I don’t
feel wanted the way I want,’ while in the front of her mind her thoughts melt
into a glowing rosewater pool of flames.
She’s absorbing a sunset deep in her soul, and immersing her mind slowly
into its currents.
The
man thinks, ‘This is what I want; but this is not what I want.’
Fourteen
billion years ago, approximately, a crack of possibilities opened in the
nothingness and the Universe was born.
Light and matter crystallized in an expanding web. Galaxies of dust were blown together by
winds of chaos and cherished by gravity.
Stars pulled themselves together, then blew themselves apart after
millions of years of hot action. One
star pulled itself together for a third and final time. The star had planets. Through its warmth, the love of the star
nurtured a biocomplex into a long adventure.
After
a lot of jostling and irritation, we arrive at a park in a sunlit winter, two
organic membranes touching in a welcome prolonged instant of intrigue, two
sweet pairs of lips pressed together, producing two small but significant
fireworks of sensation, realized through two hormonally pumped-up electrical
storms, attacking two bewildered brains.
The
woman’s life has been disappointing, but unfortunately, not in any surprise
way. She can already taste the
disillusionment on the tip of her lover’s tongue. She is already prepared to finally hate him.
The
first meeting of their lips produced an adrenalin spike. Now her lips won’t let him go. But he knows their history, and he knows how
poisonous his need for her will be, for both of them. His lips cannot pretend he is the hero she
needs him to be for her, in this manifestation of their love. He can’t pretend he doesn’t know they’re not
in love anymore.
Still
they kiss.
She
thinks of her last boyfriend.
Her
love life flashes before her mind. If
Fate had smiled on her with any grace, she wouldn’t be here now, with this
conflict of feelings stirring up the storm inside her. ‘It’s hopefully mutually vexing,’ is all she
can articulate in her mind. She’s
focused on the touch receptors on her face and lips.
The
man has resolved to bring himself into a more rational, less passion-guided
understanding of their relationship. So
he forces himself to think as clinically as he can, while gently trying to pry
her lips apart with his tongue. ‘Ummm...
This sensual and emotional peak is the product of six hundred million
years of a relentless pursuit of eternity by two symbiotic sets of genes,’ he
thinks, still probing. ‘Ummm...
Clearly, love has become a very complex chemical reaction.’ He is an amateur biochemist, clearly. He thinks, ‘Mmmmmmm...’ Then he thinks,
‘No! No! No! No! No...!
‘Six
hundred million years. That’s how long
sexual reproduction has been around,’ he tries to think; ‘Or is that just the
last time I had sex? It’s difficult to
remember. I always get important
figures confused.’ He’s trying not to
get excited by the prospect of reproduction—but then decides to make the most
of the generosity of her lips, and he surrenders to the experience.
Two
figures confused in the cold. The
warmth in their cooling lives is confused, their thoughts, bodies and
identities commingled, while their perspectives, their interpretations and
their feelings are suffering from six hundred million years of separation. Enough time apart to develop into the experiences
both of them temporarily and provisionally call ‘love’.
A
feeling nags her mind as she tries to surrender to the pleasure of knowing
she’s desired. She tries to focus on a
rush of love, but a hard awareness insists itself into her conscience: ‘This
is nothing like the way I always wanted it to be,’ she thinks: ‘He’s nothing
like the man I wanted to be with. He’s
all demand and no supply, in too many ways.
Still, seize the moment...’
The
wetness of her tongue is to him conquest and sharing simultaneously. The history of mankind starts to flash
before his mind’s eye. It looks
great. Very grand. Then he remembers that glory and ego
means a lot of war and destruction,
for sure. He decides to concentrate on
the pleasure instead. So he presses his
lips more firmly against hers, steadying the back of her head with his hand as
he concentrates his thinking on the experience.
She
thinks, ‘Explore the experience. There
are still possibilities. Who knows how
many infinite lives there are to be lived?’
So she teases the top of his mouth a little with her tongue tip, and in
response he tickles the bottom of her tongue with his. Wowee.
He
closes his eyes. Her touch is a candle
of love burning in a starless void, a pinprick of light in eternity. He thinks, ‘Mmmmmm...’ again. There’s
purity in his pleasure, quite a lot of lust, and a surprising amount of unease.
She
opens her eyes.
‘He’s
got his eyes closed! While he’s kissing
me!’ she thinks in shock. ‘Cheeky sod!’
She recoils from him in disgust.
He
opens his eyes.
Copyright
Grant Bartley
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