Bare feet

 (Appears in InnerWorld Magazine 20, pages 30-33)

"May I sit with you?"

I turned and looked back over the bench for the source of the voice. It was difficult to focus on the sea of tall flowers and grasses in the meadow after staring at the light of the setting sun on the waves for so long.

"It is such a beautiful spot. But if you'd rather be alone, let me know and I will come back some other time." My eyes found her. Bare feet, a summery white dress with a slit on one side showing an athletic leg, an unadorned lovely long neck, auburn hair on fire in the rays of the dying sun, she smiled and waved.

I sat up straight and smiled back gesturing towards the bench, "Please come sit. It will be my pleasure."

"I am Carol", she said walking out of the meadow towards me. The long stem of a sunflower clutched in one hand, she crossed the few feet of gravel that marked the waterfront and sat down on the far side of the bench. Her eyes were fixed, as mine had been only a few moments ago, on the long shimmering flame that stretched from the horizon to nearly our feet as the sun set over the water. She watched the flame flicker on the undulating surface of the sea and I watched her. Her upper body hugging a folded leg raised so that its foot perched at the edge of the bench, her skirt pulled up so that the other lower leg was free and swinging in time to some internal music. Her chin rested on the raised knee, the sunflower plucked from the meadow caressing her hair, her eyes reflecting the slowly deepening colors of the flame she was so intently watching.

"You don't have company often, do you?", she asked eventually, turning her face towards me with her eyes full of mischief.

I laughed briefly in response and looked away shaking my head. "Fact is that I don't. But that don't excuse my rudeness in staring at you Carol". It was as if my internal compass swung from the setting sun to you, I thought to myself.

"Michael. That's my name."

"Michael", she said softly and turned back to face the flame. Extending an arm out towards the sea, she pursed her lips into an oval and exhaled deeply and sharply. The sun died.

Wish you were

In the light of the moon, I sit by your side.

"I wish you were...", I say so softly that you don't hear me. It is high tide and the waves lap gently at our bare feet. It was your inspiration to place the bench in our little corner by the sea just so that at high tide the waves of water would crest exactly at our feet. After all these years the memory of how excited you were when we did this still makes me smile. It was one of the last things we had bought together in setting up our home, the old bench from the garage sale with its wooden slats pockmarked as if each sea-storm of the past decade had written its history on them in Braille. You had loved the bench at first sight and I have always loved you and so it was that most nights we sat on the bench watching the iridescent waves in the moonlight.

"I wish you were...", I say faltering mid-sentence as you turn to look at me, your eyes searching my face. I ache to reach for you, to pull you into my arms, but resist for I can already feel the grains of sand slipping away from under my feet with the receding waves. Soon there will be nothing to stand upon. Before this can all drift away, I force myself to break your eyes embrace and pick up my flute to begin playing our favorite song. I play looking straight ahead, willing the music towards the sea with a quiet desperation. I play for each grain of sand that holds up our world. The waves of music, emotion, and the sea, all crest and fall battling it out for their own versions of reality.

In the small hours of the night, I sit by your side.

"I wish you were...", I whisper as I turn back to meet your gaze. "I wish you were, by my side".

Penance

(Appears on pages 46-49 with beautiful photography by Thereaver Barrymore accompanying it in the second year anniversary issue of InnerWorld magazine.)

I set the glass of whiskey, ice cubes clinking, down on the wooden side table and settle into my usual couch for the night. The warm moisture in the air creates a band of condensation on the outside of the cold glass. Reaching towards it with practiced ease, I use a finger to carefully trace her initials onto the moist outer surface. And as happens every night, the drops of moisture slide, move, mate, coalesce into tears that flow into the letters and slowly find their way down the path I traced, collecting into a small pool at the base. In time, the downward flow will bleed through the outline of the letters and blur them, but I know that if I don’t touch the glass, it will remain possible to make out her initials for a long time. As the night settles around me, I sit watching her slowly dissolving name, a bottle of Talisker for company and the drumbeat of rain on the roof for music.

The sound of the screen door swinging open and banging shut startles me and I stand abruptly, picking up the glass and bottle instinctively as if protecting them from an intruder. I stand in place, undecided whether to just sit down again or go investigate the noise. Resentful of this interruption, I drain the whiskey in one swallow, feeling the cold amber liquid spread its fire downwards inside my throat as I walk out through the screen door and on to the back porch. There is nothing, no one outside but the rain.

I can’t remember a night without rain. At least, not since she left. The lone bulb on the back wall of the house fights the oppressive rain as it presses down into the ground, its light barely managing to penetrate a few feet from the covered porch. In the darkness beyond, the world disappears into rain. Not having left the house for weeks, I suddenly feel deeply unsure if anything exists beyond the house, our house. Uneasy that everything has been washed away, I toss the glass aside and walk out into the rain, taking swigs directly from the bottle. In a few feet I can see nothing but press onwards, lurching, fighting the downpour. In a few more steps I’m forced to stop as all my senses completely focus on the intense feeling of rain beating down on me. There is nothing but the rain. Even the whiskey is finished and I let the bottle drop and stand absorbing the blows, seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting the rain as it tears into me. The barrier of the clothes between the rain and my skin becomes unbearable and I rip them off. Naked now, I stand completely still with my eyes closed, head tilted back, and my arms raised towards the sky embracing what will happen. There will be nothing but the rain.

Save me

(Appears on pages 50-51 in Issue 18 of Inner World Online Magazine) 

The crowd roared its approval as the singer's voice came on over the plaintive notes at the beginning of the next song. "And now a song that hasn't been requested for months. Wicked Games goes out to Chloe." Shouts of "love this song" and hoots and whistles echoed from all over the dance floor. Like me, many here were regulars at Ed Kyomoon's live music events. 

"I have been watching you for many weeks now, and you always just stand alone at the back", she said as she flowed into my arms. With her bare shoulders and cascading raven hair safely within my embrace, I smiled into her eyes. "So what made you ask me for a dance tonight?", she asked smiling back at me. Memories faded in and out, this song, our song, her dark hair and flowing dress within my arms as we danced. 

I pulled my love in closer still, body swaying with hers in our effortless slow dance, my face nuzzling her hair, and waited many heartbeats for the start of the right phrase in the song to whisper along with the singer, "My world was on fire, and no one can save me but you". She giggled, her hands squeezing my back. "Mmmm, you seem fine enough to me Stranger. No fire and no need for saving." 

Using the swinging motion of the dance I lifted her up by the waist, and still swaying with the familiar music kissed the length of her bare shoulders inwards towards her throat. Each kiss tinged with memory. In response, she arched her body back so that my kisses trailed down her throat and into the valley between her breasts. Her hands reached up to press my face into her soft curves. "What a wicked game to play", she intoned along with the singer, "to make me feel this way". "What a wicked thing to say", I responded with the singer, "you never felt this way". She laughed happily while I set her back down straight. "I had liked this song before, but now I am going to love it". 

With lyrics perfect for slow dancing, the moonlit night, the glow of the warm fires surrounding the dance floor, and the mingling of breath with unspoken memories and unhinged desires, all conspired to give meaning to every scripted dance move. She rested her head on my shoulders and gave in fully to my embrace. 

We danced together alone, each in our separate world, silent feelings emanating like ribbons, connecting, twisting, colliding, unraveling our fantasies. 

In the silence, passion. In the silence, pretense. In the silence, possibilities. In the silence, song. In the song, ghosts of dances past. 

(The lyrics used are from the song titled "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak. Edward Kyomoon does indeed sing regularly in SL.)

Tell her

(This story appears in Issue #17 of Inner World magazine starting at page 60) 

 I smiled into her eyes, my body stretched on hers, and reached for the scarves that bound her wrists to the bed. "Maybe I should not release you," I whispered into her ears and kissed the strands of hair clinging to the sweat on her face. "Maybe I should keep you bound here until you confess your love for me." 

She laughed giddily "and what if I never fall in love with you?" 

"Oh you will love me" I said as I undid the scarves and released her from under me, "you will love me more than you have ever loved anyone." 

She stood and dressed quietly before turning back and sitting next to me on the edge of the bed. "Is this what you told her too? Does she love you more than she ever loved anyone?" 

I took her hand in mine and looked into her eyes. "Babe, you know that I don't love her. That you are the one for me." 

She turned her face away avoiding looking at my eyes and my naked body. "But when are you going to tell her that?" 

I reached out and with a hand under her chin gently forced her to look back at me. "She will be hurt love, and I am trying to break from her as gently as I can. You know this." 

"Yes, I do know this, and if she feels for you half as much as I do, I know that she will hurt. Hurt for a long long time." She rested her head on my shoulder, "and yet this isn't right. Your making an alt to see me. It isn't what the man I love would do." 

We sat at the edge of the bed, my hands caressing her hair. "I don't know how it is so different from what you are doing. You have another lover too. What about him? You and he have been together for even longer than I with her." 

She sighed and sat up straight. "It is different. We have an open relationship." 

I laughed softly, shaking my head. "And yet he does not know about us. You meet me in secret too." 

"I never loved him. You loved her. That is the difference." She leaned forward to kiss me quickly and got up from the bed. "Look, I know the real person behind this alt and the avatar I met first is one and the same, but somehow it feels dirty for you to be using an alt. It just does." 

* * * * * * * * * * * 

"Sorry I am so late love. The wireless connection is so flaky" she said laughing apologetically, "and you know there is no one I can complain to since I am stealing it from a neighbor." 

She sat down next to him on the couch, leaning over to embrace him, kissing his face. "It is good that you are going through a busy phase at work. I don't feel quite so guilty about being online so little." 

He sits unmoving while she kisses him. "What is the matter love? You are quiet." 

"There is something difficult I have to tell you," he said, turning towards her.

I first made you

I first made you.
Not from whole cloth,
and not from textures stolen.
Not from billions of polygons
in a souped up graphics card.
Not from faerie dust, and
not from the ephemera of dreams.
I made you from conversations.

I first made you
for conversations.

(They say that short short fiction is really prose poetry. Well, this one just came out that way.)

Memories

(This story appears on page 50 in Inner World Magazine #16)

Today I set fire to all my memories. Memories of you and I. Memories of me remembering you. Memories of your being with me every day despite our separation years ago. I felt the reassuring clasp of your hand in mine as we stood watching the fire spread to anything and everything that harbored the memories that so marred my mind. Our land burned, the tall grasses that used to hide our intertwined bodies from prying eyes, the twin cottages where we lived and loved, the clumps of bamboo trees under which we spent all those hours talking, the flames removing all color and life and reducing them to charred skeletons. It took time for the fire to burn itself out, especially in those spots where the weight of our memories was heaviest; several hours of raging fire to turn years of whispered conversations under the bamboo grove into so much smoke that it despoiled even the clouds in the sky with soot, with dark particles of fragmented memories. In time and in fire, all the flesh of memories was gone leaving behind only the hollow bones of imagined substance.

You leaned into me as we watched the fire burn itself out, and I felt the wetness of your tears on my shoulder as you whispered, "Free... finally free." I pulled you closer, held you tight against me for a few silent moments before kissing the top of your hair and pressing your hand onto my heart answered, "I carried out your wishes my love, but these flames, these flames did not burn down this heart's desire". Hand in hand, we walked silently through the charred ruins of our former lives all the way to the far horizon. In the blackened sky, our doves, now ravens, struggled in an endless cycle of flapping wings as if held in place by invisible anchors, unable to escape. We watched their struggle to be free for a while before turning back. I could feel your steps faltering and stopped. "All of this," I gestured around us, "all of what was, was not memories." I wrapped my arms around you, whispering "You are not a memory, my love. You are my heart's desire. And all that is born of desire cannot be so easily erased." I could feel your quiet sobbing, your face against my chest as I held you for a long while. Desire surged, and not long after there was a flash of color under the bamboo grove behind you and even from the far distance I could tell that it was back, the big floral-print chair that was our very favourite place to hold each other and talk. The cycle had begun anew.

(*The above story was inspired in part by an SL Sim shown here in two relevant pictures.*)

Rain

The drumbeat of the pouring rain on the roof kept me from falling asleep. I finally gave up and stood at the side of the bed looking at her sleeping form, the gently rising and falling swell of her breasts, the bony curve of her hips, the long languid softness of her inner thighs, and the taut muscles of her lower leg leading to the arch of her beautiful feet. Desire flaring, I fought the tumescent urge and walked out to the porch with a bottle of Talisker for company. The thick moist night air had awoken deep swollen desires in both of us and we had spent the better part of the night satisfying our primal urges. I had taken her for my pleasure over and over again and in the blurring of lust and love had been more demanding and rough than I usually am. And so, wishing to let her body and mind rest, I sat alone in my favorite wooden chair on the porch near the steps leading to our beach, just out of reach of the rain, nursing my whiskey. It was still a couple of hours from daybreak and in the dark of the night the rain came down in endless sheets nearly invisible to the eye except at the point of impact where the carpet of white churn marked the union of sky with sea. For all the fury of the rain, the sea was strangely calm and spent with the waves washing gently ashore just a few feet from my chair. Perhaps the incessant rain had beat even the vast sea into submission. My eyes closed, I let the whiskey speak to my blood, while my mind slipped slowly back in time into the night that was. Glimpses of her eyes as I tore into her with my need. Her desire yielding, giving, meeting thrust with embrace. The sounds from her throat echoing mine. Blood surged as I could feel her breath and the softness of her hair surround my need, her kisses up my thighs breaking my reverie. I opened my eyes, pleased to see her kneeling in the pose that was her favorite way to sit on the porch with me. I caressed her hair back from her forehead, cupped her beautiful face with both hands and smiling into her eyes I whispered, "You needn't have woken, my love". "I am bound to your need" she replied.