He took my chin in his hand, brought my face to his. I breathed his breath and i felt like i was falling again, into deep water from shallow cliffs. I waited for his mouth to open, and when it did, when his small white teeth flashed in the firelight, I knew I had been saved, somehow. Here was all I needed, here was the key I had been looking for. He smiled. I wonder just how much of my thoughts he could taste, his voice licking my mind, salt and all... Numbly, I listened..but I could not tell you what he said. his voice was so damn perfect, he gripped my insides with his words, twisted them, fondled my heart, scraped down its strings..
When I could finally look away again, down at my pale thighs (i could not bring myself to look at his body this closely), I whispered a single word. He again lifted my face to his.
"You love me." I was not sure what I had expected; had I really thought he was in love with me? That I had come in here for some reason beyond my own tangled emotions. He spoke the truth, but he did not speak his own and it made me afraid. Do you love me? i asked, but I could not say if he answered, because he had put his hands on me and was lowering me back down to the soft floor, moving over me, and I was lost and redeemed and satisfied on a warm hearth by a dead woman's dream.
I can go no further here, my heart is pounding its way from my lips and I have to sleep. My eyes burn, my mouth is bruised and my body is aching a gentle deep ache from my tender center up to my shoulders..I will put out the candle; the sun is up.

Turn the page..
Turn back a page..
Close the Journal