Drifting

The moonlight playing through the leaves of the oaks that lined her drive cast dappled shadows, ever shifting, all around and over him as he noiselessly approached her house. The darkened windows stared solemnly at him, the occasional crooked shutter seeming to punctuate a quiet expression of disapproval. The silvery beams that fell so lightly and beautifully through the trees did not deign to lend their magic to the dilapidated building. The moonglow merely made it seem faded and dingy, like a smear of tarnish in a silvered landscape. It was out of place in the serene rural setting: a sneer in a formal photo, or a street urchin trying to hobnob in polite society.

The moon was high in the clear sky, and it gave him ample light as he picked his way carefully around the corner of the house, blighted blossoms and denuded sunflower heads waving briefly at him from neglected flowerbeds. Each visit was the same, different only in the degree of decay apparent at his passage. Idly, he pulled off a long strip of paint peeling from the wooden boards and let it fall underfoot as he mounted the steps of the back porch. He had never once used the front door, preferring to restrict himself in the old cliché. Disrespect for the dead, apparently, had limits.

The old screen door squealed noisily as he pulled it open; for the hundredth time he told himself he would fix it, only to remind himself that he had no place here. No place, but for nights like tonight, when need pulled them irresistibly together. His need, her need, it never mattered. For each, the other was always the final, the ultimate balm to their pain. The door opened easily at his touch; she never locked it, and he had never thought of what he might do if he ever found it barred to him. Some things were simply never to be questioned, only accepted in good faith and kept in the silence of his thoughts. As he made his way through the dark utility room, he listened for sounds of her, wondering for a moment if she was awake or not.

When there's wine in your belly

Love rhythms on your tongue

For you are a woman

And each man has been too young

The small, bedraggled owl that had blown through his window that evening as he was preparing dinner had borne a typically concise message from her. Tonight it read, and he had not bothered with a reply, knowing that she expected none. It had been a long time since either of them had worried about the niceties that such a liaison usually warranted, years in fact. Neither one of them wanted to deal with such hypocrisy, as honesty had always been a cornerstone of their relationship. Instead he had answered the summons, feeling deep within himself the emergence of a need of his own, one that combined both the old, familiar pain, and a new unknown longing.

He passed through a door into the dim light of the kitchen. A fire was banked in the fireplace, coals winking balefully at him through a heavy rug of ash and pricking little orange lights into the shadows of the room. A large cat, fur made ruddier by the firelight, lifted his head from his slumber on the hearth and stared solemnly in his direction for a long moment before laying back down with a soft feline sigh. An empty bottle of firewhiskey lay on its side on the floor nearby, a few amber drops pooling below the open mouth and more still around the two small glasses sitting beside it. So, she had been entertaining here earlier. No, euphemisms wouldn't do; she was trying to drive away the pain again, trying to smother an unquenchable fire. But at last, as always, she came to him for relief. He could always drive back the demons, if only for the night, thereby exorcising his own in her catharsis.

But for me, you were a lover

Gently under your covers

Your sheet reeks of others

There was a creak at the top of the stairs. He heard her calling his name softly, and in the quiet that came after he could hear the silent call that went out to the other, the one gone beyond reclaiming, into the final embrace of sleep. The one she had loved with every fiber of her being. His best friend.

Oh, I came here to hold, and be held, for awhile

He traveled up the stairs quickly, up to the tiny room at the top. She stood before the open window, wearing a thin shift that was nearly transparent in the moonlight. Her hair was unbound and mussed, and her cheeks were flushed in obvious intoxication. She swayed slightly as she turned to him, and the movement exposed the bottle of wine she was clutching by the neck. He crossed to her without saying a word and gently took the bottle from her, setting it down on a small table by the bed. She said his name again, the word trembling on her lips, and he pressed his mouth over hers, kissing her passionately, desperately. She drank him in like the wine, her arms tightening around him like they did the first time, shortly after he had died. He let his mouth roam down the side of her neck, nibbling tenderly where it joined her shoulder and she moaned as she molded herself to the curve of his body. He stooped slightly, sliding one arm behind her legs to sweep her up into his arms like a child, and like a child she huddled against his chest, her cinnamon eyes gazing into his own with mingled pain, desire, and remorse. Once more, the unfamiliar need surged in his chest as he kissed her again, fiercely, and she responded in kind

He stumbled slightly, making his way over to the bed carrying her and kissing her all at once. They dropped heavily onto the rumpled bedding, locked in an embrace. Despite the fever that burned in her and the warm summer air, her skin was cold as he slid his hands under the light gown she wore and lifted it over her head. She tore at his clothes, frantic to remove them, and he flung them off as she explored his body, gasping at her hunger. She pulled him closer to her, whispering into his ear, "Love me."

As he thrust into her, as she arched to receive him, he knew that he already did.

And I've been drifting

Like a dream out on the sea

I've been drifting

In between you and me

Their lovemaking that night had a renewed intensity to it. Their union was always an intense thing, borne as it was from such powerful emotions within them both, but he was taken aback by the strength of the feelings that flooded him when he held her shuddering body through their climax. As always, in the heat of the moment she cried a name that did not belong to him, and as always, he just whispered her name back, and kissed away the tears that were sliding down her cheeks. And as always, he knew that she was able to sublimate her pain again in his embrace.

The alcohol was taking its usual toll; with her release, he could feel her body relaxing into the soothing oblivion of sleep. She gave a little sigh, as close to being at peace as she was capable now, and he knew that when the guilt woke her in the morning she would again find comfort that it was his arms caging her, and not another's. He studied her face in the moonlight as she drowsed, watching as layers of heartache and loss were peeled away by the fingers of sleep, leaving a close approximation of the girl he had known long ago. She was deep beyond the veil of dreams now, ranging far as she searched for the connection severed, the missing pieces to her wholeness. He understood; the same pieces were gone in his own soul, and they were both doomed to the truncated existence left behind now that he was gone. Once, the three of them had been inseparable and invincible. But for whatever cruel reasoning, the Fates had decreed that old Atropos cut the cord that had held him threaded through their lives. Without him, they were incomplete. He wondered, not for the first time, if it had been himself who had died, would she have grieved him so fiercely? Would he have?

And every time I think about you I can't remember

what I said or did that was right or wrong,

You know I just don't remember

She sighed again, shifting slightly on her pillow and drawing his eyes to her movements. He had begun watching her while she slept more the last few visits instead of falling into a stuporous slumber beside her after their surfeit of emotion. He wondered now, watching her brown curls glisten as they shifted with the movement of her breathing, why it was that she had chosen to give her love to him. Not that he had ever once begrudged them that devotion; he had been overjoyed for their discovery of each other. They had fitted as though made for each other, one picking up where the other left off, completing each other to a perfect wholeness and unity. And yet he knew, had she ever offered her heart to him, he would have fitted to her as well as ever he did.

All I want to be is what you mean to me

Not that it mattered now. She was damaged inside, and unable to accept his love, only the veneer of comfort that their rendezvous provided. A band-aid on an amputation.

All I want to be

Is what you mean to me

He reached over and gently brushed her heavy hair aside to expose her face to the moonlight. Asleep, the ruin that lived in her eyes was veiled by thick sooty lashes, and she looked like a dusky angel come to rest in cotton sheets. The play of night shadows across her familiar features gave her the guise of innocence that had been stripped from her much too long ago. He understood that, too; he had been alongside her for much of it, and he bore scars as well. The unknown longing filled him again; watching her breathe while wrapped in the silence of the silver night, he wanted to remain here beside her. He wanted to belong in the room whose space he had only before borrowed. So slowly, as if fearing that the angel would wake to take flight, he placed a kiss lightly upon her temple, trying to condense all of his love for her, his need for her and devotion to her into the gentle pressure of his lips against her skin. Love me! he thought urgently, willing his anguished mental cry to be heard.

Late last night

As I dreamed in dizzy sunlight

I thought I heard your bare feet up the stairs

Just like a fool

Her lips curved up slightly, in a wisp of a smile, and for a mere moment, his heart pounded. But he recognized that smile; as the watchman of her dreams for so long, he had a long acquaintance with the fleeting expression. It was not for him.

Just like a fool

The moon was setting, and its fluid light cast a maze of gloom across the pale wall, strained through the swaying leaves and branches of the stolid oaks beyond the window. He lay awake deep into the night, wrapped around her like a shell, and trying to find the escape to the puzzle etched in the shadows on the wall.

I've been drifting

Like a dream out on the sea

I've been drifting

In between what we used to be

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