Eventually is Too Soon

A pair of bikini-cut cotton panties rests against the side of the waterbed.  A pastel green tie stitched with pink flowers coils on top of an Italian designer dress shirt.  Plush blankets piled and spread on the floor, with hesitant light filtering through the thick woven curtains that cover the small basement window.  An arched back, grasping hands, a torn wrapper.  Breathing so fast and shallow that only ankles would become wet before the curled toes would be swept away.

A knock at the door.  Hey, we’re leaving.  Come on.  She stifles her mirth by biting my shoulder.  I wince before barking a helpless laugh, then call out, We’ll catch up.  Her fingers wrap themselves in my jaw-length hair before pulling my head down until my lips are nearly touching hers.  Not soon, I hope, she whispers into my mouth, before chasing the words with her tongue.  Existence roils in endless eventualities, really.

We break up before the month ends, and then toil beneath the partly sunny skies of unattached sexual entanglement.  Today, though, is different.  The summer world sweats sunshine, desire, and trust.  Conspiratorial glances and secretive smiles, passion that doesn’t end at sex.  Peacock feathered happiness, all blue-eyed and tasseled.  Today sparkles, shimmers, glitters, glimmers, and it glowers neither into the past or present.  It rushes headlong into itself with the landslide bliss of the oblivious. 

A Catholic wedding with a balding man speaking in ancient tongues, waiting on the rote echoes of the inculcated.  A hidebound book in my hands, my copper wire arms balked at the weight of all its history.  I slip it into the back of the pew in front of me.  My hand found hers at the bump of her knee, that little hillock just beyond the hem of her dress.  Thin-strapped and floral-patterned, shaved legs and shiny black shoes–a gilded lily in a jeweler’s case.   

And now the reception.  I have draped my faintly pinstriped suit jacket over the cushioned chair, my eyes scanning the banquet room and taking in the revelry.  She has donned a flimsy wool pullover, a sweater that wouldn’t keep a sheep warm.  Her fingers entwine in the leather loops of my burgundy silk suspenders, giving them a slight tug.  I love these–and she talks like a lit cigarette–before her hand runs down and begins to slowly massage my crotch through my pants.  I shield my face by pretending to rub my temple and turning toward her, mouth, What are you doing?  She smiles but doesn’t stop, saying, I really like your suit.

We polka now, and she giggles hysterically while I improvise gibberish to the traditional Czech tune.  The faux German tumbling from me sounds positiviely disgusting, and she lets me know–are you German, or are you choking?  She isn’t always happy, but she’s happy now.  She’s young and vibrant and all of those wild horses you ride until thrown.  And that will always happen, eventually.