These Little Things...
Znews SERIAL VIGNETTE #1 (continued):
By E.S. TALER
Oona leans into my conversation, her stare scoots closer to my face. Her sister has left the room.Georgia doesn't care about the topic. Claims Oona gets too Passionate about these little things. Oh Oona darling, the little and large things I have for your passion. Her sister comes back from the pay phone with the recent conversation putting hautiness into her voice, which is always too high for my taste. She leans in and says, "I'm going to the movies, I'll meet you here afterwards."
Oona's face angles its stare to her sister's without ever really leaving mine. "Fine."
Georgia raises an eyebrow and does the damnest yet, rolls her eyes upwards the way I used to imagine them doing and says, "No, nevermind sister. I'll meet you at home. If I am sleeping, do not wake me."
These things, there are things I know, know, know about this heart-shaped child...heart-shaped inside out. Oh lean into me futher little one and listen harder to these words of no meaning.
Yes, now I can smell you. Like peaches, like my milky sweet morning tea, like my wine in the evening and papayas on my favourite tropical voyage. You smell like all my favourite sweet things of this gravity drawn, fallen world.
"Tell me what you think."
I think I could eat you alive.
"I think it's all true. No one could've described my feelings for the matter stronger." I say.
"Georgia's probably right, I do have a tendency to get worked up over these little things easily."
"Hmm." I smile at her, she beams loudly back. "Nonsense," I begin to say, in case my response seemed negative. "Your passion" --I BURN just saying that, your passion-- "is what makes you so wonderful to listen to."
"Thank you." She gently (she is so gentle), touches the side of my face.
Let me touch your face. Let me, let me know that the softness is not just in your fingertips.
"Should we have another cup of coffee? Or am I keeping you?"
Keep me, oh dear god keep me as long as you like, I have already become a believer. "No, let's order some wine."
Full red wine that makes us fools and sends you smiling around me in a circle. That loosens your tongue to give away your secret desires of me.
"Only if you promise me something," she says.
I promise you my life. "Fine."
"No matter how much we drink, we must NOT discuss anything sad."
How could I possibly understand sad at this moment? She makes it fleeting memories of an old man.
I promise her, and the bottles begin to roll.
She guides us home. Smelling everything on the way, we exchange these common scents of niceness. The flat is dark when we enter and there are empty bottles on the coffee table and one that had just been opened.
"More wine?" she smiles. Never have I gotten more excited from a woman's smile. Though I thought this of Georgia. I pour and she looks around at the records on the floor, settling for the one already on the phonograph. It begins to play and we hear her sister coming with a deeper voice than the music. The beginning of the song is momentarily blended with moans.
Oona does not appear to notice as she puts her head in between her legs to yawn. Then lifting her head she says "sounds nice, doesn't it?" She sits up completely. Her face is rosey. Rosey, mmm.
"I believe my sister is the most melodious love maker of them all. And her partners are not half bad. I used to tease her, by telling her she only kept the ones who sounded good."
She laughts at me, at my expression. It seems strange to hear her talking about sex. She seems too subtle for that. But again it adds to her charm, it feeds my wine-soaked intestines. She sits next to me on the little love seat made for one and a half and says, "finish your wine." I swallow the rest of my glass with her.
"Do you think I can sing?" she says.
Ah, and that little charmer, that little changling closes in on my mixed reactions of shock and delight, what happened to my little hunted one? My lost white bunny in the snow?
She uses one hand to prop herself up with the back of the love seat and hovers above me. Not inching, but floats down onto my mouth and enters me with a kiss.
I woke up to find her dressed at the foot of her bed, asking me what I like to drink in the morning. She smiles. Tea milky please. She brings it in and sits next to me. I hold her around the waist and kiss the curls by her neck. She is not warm enough. I hope for a second. But it is quickly dismissed with an early morning appointment. Will I see you tonight?"
"Look for me at the cafe."
I am looking now. I have no recollection of anything beyond that kiss and before her dressed morning.
Even when Georgia walked out from her room to get a glass of water for her latest lover there was no sense of familiarity in her naked body.
I will see Oona again, if not tonight, soon, very soon. And this time, I will remember everything. I will remember it all.
PART II
I sit waiting, watching people argue, kiss and ignore each other over cups of coffee and sweet cocktails. They are all highly animated like one of Georgia's favourite comedy films. Wide smiles, tall eyebrows and arms waving like frantic rowers against the pull of the falls.
She has not come yet, but I have faith, I am a believer. I sip my coffee, never spilling, never dripping. I am patient. I will be rewarded.
I don't have to see her to know she is approaching me from behind. I can smell her. The warm air pushing her scent to me. I turn around and her curls are sighing.
"I wasn't sure if you were going to come," I say.
"Why?"
"The way things were this morning."
"I'm all business in the morning, I must stay on my schedule. Don't take it personally."
"Well, what would you like Oona? How about if we split a bottle of wine?"
"Wine would be wonderful."
She looks at me with her startling round eyes, whose intimate stares only I can read. How I cannot wait to read every part of her delicate body. I want to participate in its stories, create new ones and revel in past memories. I want to watch it roll through the docile beginnings, the thickening plot and the surprising climax and then I want to read it again. Oh Oona, these things for you I have. These things you have for me.
"You're looking at me so strange."
"I'm sorry if I offended you Oona, I was just admiring."
Again we drank. We drank till we were the last of the gesturing crowd at the cafe. We were the last gaudy laughers, the last lovers to leave. The two of us had reached a new level of inebriation and the wine and everything else was pounding in our veins, harder and faster than my patient impatience and her docile desperation.
The barman hailed us a taxi and guided us toward the door. Oona paid the driver in advance and told him to drive by the river on the way there. The scenic route she said. And again she hovered over me, so I feel like the victim of a vampire, my predator so beautiful and pale, so sensual as it approaches me, I welcome the attack. The bright lights of the buildings along the river streak through the windows, lighting up the water below, it looks like fire. Her flawless kisses rain down upon the crook, nape and hollow of my neck. Her touch unerring as it caresses and claws at the same time. Her face gently nuzzling my testicles, her eternally swollen lips opening to warmly embrace me.
Again, dammit again I wake to find a dressed angel at the doorway to daylight. She is getting ready to go...
"I thought you'd never wake up, Sleepyhead. There's breakfast on the kitchen table. You might have to share with Georgia when she gets out of the shower."
"Is it so late you have to go?" I ask.
She comes over and sits in my lap, "Yes, but tonight Georgia is going to be away so we can have dinner over here. And we won't have to worry about paying the taxi driver so much either." She gets up laughing, still laughing as I hear the front door click close.
Tonight then, tonight I will not let a moment go. I was so close to remembering the entire episode, I am still shuddering with the last impression of the night.
PART III
With flowers in hand like a highschool sweetheart I am at her door, prompt and shining like Oona will soon be for me.
"Thank you." she says opening the door. Do not thank me just yet little one.
"You're more than welcome," I say.
"I'm not much of a cook," she says, gesturing to the cartons of chinese food on the table. "But you will see that I ordered the best take out in the town. Come sit down."
I notice there is no wine on the table, perhaps I should've brought wine instead of flowers I say.
"No, tonight is going to be solely us."
She is so impatient tonight. Nothing like before, nothing like I imagined. She is pawing at me, groping at me, knocking over the cartons, barely touched. Her hands are everywhere on me. When I attempt to feather her with my concise kisses, she grabs at me more, she wants me to suck and bite at her as if angry. And still it doesn't seem to appease either one of us. But my need, my need is still here for you Oona. Let me, let me.
She is so firey, her hair seems to gleam a little red tonight. Her soft clear eyes have turned stone and hard. Within her I cannot help but move in time to the record she's put on, why, why is this so mechanical? She must sense my thoughts and her delicate frame flips me on my back like I am a little boy. She moves over me, guiding herself, for herself. She does not undulate, she does not gently rock upon me, she writhes and shakes herself. I cannot help but feel this is so undignified and a small yelp is released from me as she masturbates herself to catch up to the finish line.
She has fallen asleep and her face has returned to it's softer than soft appearance. She wakes as I'm putting on my shoes at the foot of her bed.
"I need to leave." I say.
"You won't be returning."
"No."
"Not the same was it?"
"No."
"Don't fail to say hello to me and Georgia when you see us at the cafe."
"Of course not."
I have not returned to the cafe. I have not seen the sisters in quite sometime. . .