Reciprocate.
I think, so long as I live, I will never forget the image of him, under me, sweat-slick and bathed in moonlight. The pale of his inner thigh as I pressed my mouth to one spot, then another. Crash of waves and crash of bodies, the air heady and heavy with the two of us, with words and sounds and sensation. Alive.
The skin between my shoulderblades is peeling, and that tiny patch over my nose. Days spent lying on the beach, mostly naked and baking and baked. I feel loose-limbed and sated and satisfied. I feel him, even as the vacation recedes to memory. A week's worth of work left before I find my way back to a different ocean, to the warmth of Ava's small hands and Deacon's sticky fingers. The weariness I felt so much of just a matter of days ago has been leached out by sun and capable ministrations.
There's a new kind of energy brewing now, not unlike the tiger, coiled, and ready to pounce. A flash in my eyes that's reserved for him, and the next homecoming.
I don't think you can ever really know someone. Hell, I'm not sure you can ever really know yourself, because if so then there's nothing to the element of surprise and I'll be damned if I'm not continually tripping myself up. Still, there are moments, spaces between heartbeats when the veil is lifted and for a minute you can see that other. The person who has the power to consume. To destroy, if they choose. There are moments where symbiosis seems possible, where one hand reaches for the other, and they meet, and the connection appears so seamless that it is, for that instant.
More and more I see. Not myself. Not him. Us. More and more I wonder at how that's come to be.
Surprise.
The skin between my shoulderblades is peeling, and that tiny patch over my nose. Days spent lying on the beach, mostly naked and baking and baked. I feel loose-limbed and sated and satisfied. I feel him, even as the vacation recedes to memory. A week's worth of work left before I find my way back to a different ocean, to the warmth of Ava's small hands and Deacon's sticky fingers. The weariness I felt so much of just a matter of days ago has been leached out by sun and capable ministrations.
There's a new kind of energy brewing now, not unlike the tiger, coiled, and ready to pounce. A flash in my eyes that's reserved for him, and the next homecoming.
I don't think you can ever really know someone. Hell, I'm not sure you can ever really know yourself, because if so then there's nothing to the element of surprise and I'll be damned if I'm not continually tripping myself up. Still, there are moments, spaces between heartbeats when the veil is lifted and for a minute you can see that other. The person who has the power to consume. To destroy, if they choose. There are moments where symbiosis seems possible, where one hand reaches for the other, and they meet, and the connection appears so seamless that it is, for that instant.
More and more I see. Not myself. Not him. Us. More and more I wonder at how that's come to be.
Surprise.