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mutableI picked up my book and my blanket, folding it over my arm. I brushed a few leaves from the dilapidated edges. My attention was caught by the horizon. Fire reached out from the heavens and touched the hills, lighting them as the sun gifts the moon. A chill wrapped around the end of my spine, and I shivered, breaking out in goosebumps for no reason I could coherently describe, even if my conscious mind could ascertain what it is that scared me.
Jeannie.
My mother told me to never fall in love with a straight girl. Well, those weren't her exact words, and, anyway, my mother would never have dared to interfere with my love life, but she told me that loving as one would was a strength she could not deny me, should I love with respect and consent. While not a trailblazer in the world of sexual politics, and while she became a little distant once I came out, she rebounded and just tried to switch things around when talking about potential partners. She even tried to tell funny stories about women she had been attracted to, and situations that sounded naughtier than they were at the time.
Jeannie's voice was like a dove's, and her hands were soft and smelled often of soap. She worked in a hospital, and while I was used to the cooing textures of almost-whispered loving and dreamy moments, I had also heard her voice used as a whip to slash against the cold and lonely acting out their perverse injury unto the world.
I would stand in the spice aisles and breathe in trying to determine of what spice Jeanie's rich, dark skin most reminded me. Was it fennel or dill or saffron? I loved the way my hand looked against the contrast of her hip. I could find a thousand different things about her I adored, from a dark spot on her right cheek to the arch of her left foot.
Later she said that I put her on some sort of “impossible pedestal.” I didn't understand; she didn't have to live up to anything, she just had to be herself. I admired her for her, for the way she laughed, for a thousand things she didn't have to change. Maybe it was that it was a thousand things she couldn't change, and would have to take with her if she left me.
“Liss,” she whispered.
I stood at the threshhold and saw her wan form in the moonlight. “Go away, Jeannie.”
“Oh, sweet Liss, let me in!” There were sibilants emphasized in her speech. Her intoxication of choice, I supposed. I saw the way the satellite silver caught in her eyes, and how the velvet of her skin had turned instead to the dusk.
Nothing good comes of twilight visits, I told myself. This was an hour given to things that waited at crossroads, much like as the one before the dawn. Twice a day, and a witching hour, those were the souvenirs offered those who dwelt Outside.
I stood in silence. What was I going to say? I did not offer her an invitation into the house or my mind.
I could not meet those quicksilver eyes. I could not lie to them and tell her I did not want her with me. I could not tell myself that even as wan and gray as she had become that I still desired her, that at night I still lay in heats in my bed, twisting to the sounds she made. I could not say that I was not tempted.
I closed the door and ignored the sounds she made. I want to say I did the right thing. I want to say that I exorcised her from my thoughts, from my lust, from remembering the way she tasted.
I would not have it said I was a liar.
Jeannie.
My mother told me to never fall in love with a straight girl. Well, those weren't her exact words, and, anyway, my mother would never have dared to interfere with my love life, but she told me that loving as one would was a strength she could not deny me, should I love with respect and consent. While not a trailblazer in the world of sexual politics, and while she became a little distant once I came out, she rebounded and just tried to switch things around when talking about potential partners. She even tried to tell funny stories about women she had been attracted to, and situations that sounded naughtier than they were at the time.
Jeannie's voice was like a dove's, and her hands were soft and smelled often of soap. She worked in a hospital, and while I was used to the cooing textures of almost-whispered loving and dreamy moments, I had also heard her voice used as a whip to slash against the cold and lonely acting out their perverse injury unto the world.
I would stand in the spice aisles and breathe in trying to determine of what spice Jeanie's rich, dark skin most reminded me. Was it fennel or dill or saffron? I loved the way my hand looked against the contrast of her hip. I could find a thousand different things about her I adored, from a dark spot on her right cheek to the arch of her left foot.
Later she said that I put her on some sort of “impossible pedestal.” I didn't understand; she didn't have to live up to anything, she just had to be herself. I admired her for her, for the way she laughed, for a thousand things she didn't have to change. Maybe it was that it was a thousand things she couldn't change, and would have to take with her if she left me.
“Liss,” she whispered.
I stood at the threshhold and saw her wan form in the moonlight. “Go away, Jeannie.”
“Oh, sweet Liss, let me in!” There were sibilants emphasized in her speech. Her intoxication of choice, I supposed. I saw the way the satellite silver caught in her eyes, and how the velvet of her skin had turned instead to the dusk.
Nothing good comes of twilight visits, I told myself. This was an hour given to things that waited at crossroads, much like as the one before the dawn. Twice a day, and a witching hour, those were the souvenirs offered those who dwelt Outside.
I stood in silence. What was I going to say? I did not offer her an invitation into the house or my mind.
I could not meet those quicksilver eyes. I could not lie to them and tell her I did not want her with me. I could not tell myself that even as wan and gray as she had become that I still desired her, that at night I still lay in heats in my bed, twisting to the sounds she made. I could not say that I was not tempted.
I closed the door and ignored the sounds she made. I want to say I did the right thing. I want to say that I exorcised her from my thoughts, from my lust, from remembering the way she tasted.
I would not have it said I was a liar.