SPE: Light As The Breeze

[For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, kgwaite gave me this prompt: Take any Leonard Cohen song and write a piece incorporating its lyrics in some way. I gave David this prompt: "The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not." -Kurt Vonnegut]

{The song I selected was Cohen's "Light As The Breeze", which I am ashamed to say I had not heard of until Billy Joel covered it. This story is also explicit, perhaps more so than anything I have ever attempted. So if you get past the warning, and past this note, and you're still offended, to quote Matt Belknap, "That's on you, man."}

(I hasten to add that, obviously, the tragic events in Oklahoma defy description. Truly an annus horribilus for humankind this year.)

[Bonus points if you can identify the other songs referenced in the piece]











She served coffee all afternoon in black pants and shirt, but came out of the back door after closing fresh and clean looking, tangled hair flowing, a light summer dress rippling in the gentle breeze. The dress lent gravity to her curves, brought out her narrow waist and her long, proud thighs, her wide, defiant hips sloping down to her neat, polished flats, her lines smooth and elegant like a race car. She seemed more herself in a dress, more in tune with the universe. She walked up to me, her duffel bag dangling from one hand, swinging with the motion of her walk. She looked like a model in a magazine. She laughed, a gentle high sound like wine glasses clinking.

She twirled in front of me, as if she were on a runway. "You like? It's my sister's."

"Everything about it is a love song," I said.

As soon as we met, I felt like a man carrying a very full glass of water up the stairs, stepping very carefully, desperately afraid of losing my balance. I knew, from the first moment, that I never wanted another, but she was often skittish, despite my constant efforts. Like a nervous kitten, I had to keep reassuring her that things were safe.

She would remark, "I'm constantly braced for the goodbye, because it's all I've ever known."

We walked home together, talking idly about something and nothing. She was by far the greatest conversation partner I had ever known. She listened avidly, paid attention to what you said and always responded intelligently. Along with being as pretty as a sunrise, she was downright pleasant to spend time with, someone I would want to know even if she didn't let me see her with her clothes off.

After dinner, we prepared for bed.

"Aren't you coming?," she said shyly. I was sitting at the end of the bed, looking at her. It was dark, with city noise in the background and reflected bands of headlights chasing each other across our ceiling.

"I am," I said.

I was aware of her, naked, breathing, inches from me. I felt a kind of overwhelming gratitude for her, for the way she made me feel more human. I felt the knowledge of her, my worshipful love threaded with animal lust, filling my chest, leaving me unable to speak. I put one hand on her calf, feeling the striated muscle, the bristle of hair.

"I haven't shaved in a few days," she said.

I whispered, "I know."

I bent low, feeling like a supplicant, gently brushing my lips on her shin, then leaving small kisses in a row, leading up to the slightly toughened skin of her knee. I knew there was a tiny red scar there, where a childhood bike accident had marked her, and my lips found it. I kissed it tenderly.

"What are you doing," she said softly, her words slurring slightly. I didn't answer, because I was sure she knew.

I felt the softer skin of her thighs under my lips. I could smell her. I could taste her. I could detect her sweat, and the citrusy smell of her moisturizer, and the almost salty smell of her holiness. I coveted everything about her, touching her skin with my lips and my eyelashes as I roamed higher. She slid her thighs apart, shivering once as she felt me getting closer to her. Being so close to her was physical, but it was also a spiritual union. I wanted to consume her like an offering, commune with her physical body, praise and give thinks. I thought about that line from the old song, about the delta, and the alpha, and the omega. Delta means change, and triangles represent a trinity.

Her open legs were a triangle, and I kissed gently up each thigh, feeling the womanly fleshiness bend gently under my touch, getting closer and closer to where I wanted to be. I knew the fat was stored to feed a possible pregnancy, and I wondered silently if that lay in our future. Reproduction seemed a miracle beyond my comprehension, but even though she never spoke about it, I knew somewhere in her psyche, the question had to linger. I used my tongue to explore, finding the sweat and the grit that a full day of life left on her skin.

She wasn't making much sound, but I could register her breathing as it quickened, the shifting of her weight as she moved. I loved pleasing her, much more than I loved receiving pleasure, because it felt like a way I could repay the shattering, relentless joy that I felt when I saw her. I was finally there, at the center of her, finding her triangle, parting the waters, exploring and kissing and opening her body's essence up to me like a flower. I dove as deep as I could, enveloped in the smell of her, the realness and the nearness and the wetness covering my face. She never screamed, but she hissed, the air coming between her gritted teeth in huge gulps.

I knew what I needed, and I could tell she was ready and I drank deeply, inhaling her, hitting the spots I knew from experience, gathering into a rhythm of touch and lick and kiss that we had established. I was a pilgrim at her temple, and I served eagerly, and I was rewarded as she bucked and clawed at the sheets, finally gathering in a full body spasm, her hands finally on my hair, finding my jaw and lifting me away from there, bringing me up towards her, finally pulling me close and giving me a long, slow kiss, our bodies sprawled together, side to side, her face reflecting joy and fulfillment as the twitches faded away.

"That was fine," she said, gasping. "But why? Why now?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Sometimes I just feel like I have to give thanks."

"Well, you're welcome," she said, her voice thick and slow. After a few minutes, I heard her breath slacken into sleep. I smiled into the darkness, watching the lights play on the ceiling.