Another Life.
( a valentines day story)
South of the holiday house on the headland, deep in tufted grass, an easel perched mosquito-like against a rucked skyline.
On a board a fixed sheet flapped a corner free, longing to set sail.
She’d rested her brushes as the painting dried and lain down in the sun.
He had woken early that day writing between seven and nine, he’d sat by the window, his table heavy with research books and notes.
Breakfast they’d shared with little conversation over the clink of china; the circling sea birds were more chatty.
Both were absorbed in their own thoughts, planning the day.
The meal over, pushing her chair noisily back over the quarry tiles she’d said,
‘I’m working on the cliff today, I’ll take a picnic’, ‘Fine’ he said, and it was.
He watched her leave, easy in the knowledge she was not far from him; often she was distant and self contained because of her art, but writing too was solitary work.
Later that afternoon he left his books for the Spring sunshine, walked up the irregular path on the cliff edge, he listened to the waves lolling over boulders below and the intermittent cry of gulls.
He felt relaxed, glad to stretch himself, breath, and escape the tension of deadlines.
Near the easel he came upon her, lying in the long grass, washed up like a ships figure head, breasts bare.
Silently he sank down beside her hidden in the tussocks and he trailed a wisp of grass over her nipples. It aroused him touching her as she slept, unaware of him, surrendered to sun and earth.
She shifted slightly, feeling the tickle and then lay still.
He stopped, his gaze moving to the flat horizon. He saw in an instant his other busy city life and was glad to be here.
Without waking her, he quietly returned to the house, read a while then from a drawer selected fresh linen, spread a cloth on the deck-table and laid up wine, olives, cheese and fruit.
A little later she returned, dumping her heavy art stuff.
‘Hard day’, he called through teasingly.
‘Exhausting’, she replied laughing and flicking sand from her hair.
She noticed the wine glowing ruby in the glass from the warm evening light, and she went to where he stood golden looking out.
Resting her cheek on his shoulder, leaning her shape into his back, she slipped her arms around him, tenderly she felt him, wanting him.
She needed his closeness and his desire for her.
Without words their bodies wound together with a sudden fire, her moist warmth welcomed his passionate intensity.
Against the setting sun, a single silhouette coupled in love-making. Touch uniting
separate lives.