Is that it

    I hope in your dreams
    that he loves your eyes
    like I did...
                      ....just for a while
                                          ------ Is that it, my friend  by Damien Rice

    I am lost in your laughter, forever seduced by the way your body moves as you laugh. Sitting across from you on our back-porch in this bright sunlit late afternoon I have brought you roses for your birthday. And your favorite chocolates. I am keeping the main gift for later. As the waves from the sea off our beach house serenade us, I tell you that after our friends have all left this evening I would be yours for the night, that you could ask of me to make all your secret fantasies come true. I cannot help but laugh along with you as I listen to you tell me what you will have me do. The brightness of your eyes, the curves of your lips as your words paint pictures of the night to come, the call of your skin to mine, the desperate hunger in my desire to taste your entire body, an all too familiar mix of raw addictions I have long struggled to come to terms with.

      I pull you gently by your hands off your chair and into my lap. Your back to me, as I embrace your body tightly into mine I whisper into your ears, "Did I tell you, my love?"
 
     You tilt your head back to kiss my chin, and wait for me. I smile into your eyes, and say, "Did I tell you how restless my heart feels without you?" You angle your head further back to offer me your lips and I envelop them in mine.

     When the spray from the waves at high-tide lapping up the beach wakes me up, it is night. As the surroundings seep slowly into my consciousness, the expanse of the sea looms larger than usual in the low moonlight. I look back at the house. It is unlit and dark. I silently voice "Happy Birthday, my love," and get up to walk back to the house.

     As I open the screen door I almost miss seeing the roses laying at the threshold to the house. 

Away from me

By the time I remembered the glass of whiskey on the side table, the ice in it had melted. The shot of cold Talisker burned my throat with familiar fire as I drained the glass empty. From my rocking chair on the back porch I had an unobstructed view of the setting sun. Mesmerized by the gentle bobbing up and down of the waves of liquid gold on the horizon I watched the sun set for a while. When it was finally dark, I reached back behind me to switch the porch light on and turned back to the book you had given me long ago. I had started reading it again earlier in the day, seeking comfort in its familiar words. As I opened the book, a neatly folded piece of paper fell out. I froze for a few seconds, remembering what was on the note...

I didn't sleep last night. All I could think about was you and me and the years we've been together in our strange way. And the more I thought about it, the madder I became. When Sam discovered our relationship, you threw me under the bus, Michael. You left me to deal with it. And I did. And you swore you'd never contact me again, but you did. Why, Michael? You were already seeing your girlfriend when you contacted me, so why did you do it? My reaction to yet another fake fucking email address from you, was correct. I was pissed and I should have stayed that way. But obviously, I'm an idiot where you're concerned.  What really kills me is that I didn't get a clue when you came to my hometown and didn't bother telling me. You could have told me about your girlfriend then, Michael, 4 months ago, but you didn't, you just kept talking about us getting back together in SL. What are you, some sort of fucking sadist?  You're the one constantly babbling about real life and SL, but you're the one who can't seem to keep it straight. You didn't even have the balls to actually tell me the truth, no, more fucking TYPING.

Let me be very clear - if I ever want to speak to you again, I'll let you know. Until then, you stay the hell away from me.

          JJ

 I poured myself another shot of whiskey, before bending to pick up the paper.

Come

Come lie to me.

Come tell me that you will be mine. Tell me that the words you have said to me were not the echos of imagined whisperings in my fevered mind. Tell me that what has happened, will happen. Tell me that I will know and love you before I lose you.

Come be my guide through this world of make believe. Together we will walk this narrow road and take all its turns. Tell me that our destination is the foreign land that you call home. Tell me this big untruth, so that I can stop nursing the little truth inside my heart.

Come be my guide, come be my love.

Come lie to me, so that I can love you.

Sanity

I try not to sleep, for sleep brings dreams, and desire, and rain, and you.

In the twilight, rain comes down in a deluge of fragments. The empty road stretches out ahead. Through the rain I can see the thick forest on both sides. There are no lights, no signs of habitation, not even in the distance. I stand still for a while on the side of the road, the wide brim of my hat keeps the rain away from my face but the rest of me is completely drenched. I don't know where I am. I don't know where to go.

These years of rain, or is it these years of dreams of rain, have washed away all the reality in me.

When I feel your hand in mine, I turn towards you and in silence we hold hands in the rain at the side of the road. In time I pull you into my arms for an embrace, you resist briefly but then yield and burying your face into my chest, you whisper "Save me".

All my dreams

Whatever it is that you want to make me into, I have already become.

Sleep is but a whisper that I cannot hear, and so I sit on the edge of our bed staring out at the distant white foam of the waves caressing our beach over and over. In the low tide, the dark expanse of sand outside our window extends far into the deep night. In the dim light from a lone naked bulb under the overhang atop the entry door of our cottage, the silvery drizzle of rain fills the window with a ghostly curtain fall.

But for the sound of the rain, the world outside could be a photograph. One that I cannot forget. One that never leaves your dreams.

I can hear your gentle breathing on the bed behind me, and if I close my eyes I can imagine your familiar curves rising and falling with every breath.

In time, the night deepens and the bed draws me again to its embrace. As I turn to lay beside you, you ask, "How long are you going to take all my dreams?"

Wish you were

The fine spray of mist-like rain on my face brought in by the wind through the open window woke me up. I must have dozed off while reading, feet up on my desk and the chair pushed back at an incline. I lay still, holding onto the book on my chest, and watched the curtains billowing into unreal shapes as I tried to pull myself out of the daze that unexpected waking from deep slumber brings.

Outside, the steadfast sea unvaried in its cadence sang its lonesome song.

When I finally turned back to open the book, the bookmark was a photograph of you. I looked at your photo for a while before remembering that I had written a note for you on its back. Turning it over...

My Love,

    There has been no other want, since I have wanted you.  You are my desire. All of it. *Smiling.* I loved the picture. You are so, so gorgeous, babe. I love the pose, the demure turning of your face, the lowered eyes, the play of light and shadows on your neck and cleavage, your hair, the legs, the bottom of the shirt hiding the part where your legs meet. And the curve of your breasts, the nipple peeking... god, it literally made me hard at work. A beautiful, alluring picture, my love.
   
Michael

 I wish you were.

Stay

I just can't get you out of my head

          --- a song by Kyle Minogue

I had been waiting for hours for the sun to set, but the far horizon had captured the frail sun just at the edge, freezing its warmth inside pale reflections on the low waves. The breeze coming off the water had gradually gotten cold, and yet I stood at the water's edge in a fevered daze. The steady periodic sound of the waves had bit by bit stripped off all the defenses in my mind.

I stood motionless for a long time,
a simpler kind of man
than the one you had once loved.

An unsteady gust of wind pulled me out off my silent reverie. Across the water's expanse the remains of the dying broken sun still glowed in a million undulating golden tears.

As I turned back from the water to make my way to our house on the beach,
you whispered, "I want you to stay."

Maze

It is not my friend, this rain, for it makes me dream of you.
I stand still, looking out over the water at the brightly-colored reflections of the lights from the city on the low hill behind me. In the moonless night, there is no one on the beach. Across the desolate dark sand the unrepentant waves sing their dying song while inside of the maze in my head I follow the forlorn thread of desire. In the unravelling past I never get to the end of the thread. I never get to find you. In this barest whisper of rain, I just can't get you out of my head. 

I will find my way out, I swear.
I will find my way out of this maze inside my mind.

Wordlessly

I reached for the glass balanced precariously on the wraparound railing of our back porch. The ice had melted and the cold whiskey went down smooth in a familiar trail of fire down my throat. Leaning back against the rocking chair, I closed my eyes to let my senses turn inwards. The wind had died down long ago, and the sound of the waves drowned out the whisper of warm rain that fell all around me on the beach and into the far horizon.

I can hear your laughter as you race ahead of me to the hammock on our beach. I pause just beyond the range of your outstretched arms as you lay in the hammock and reach for me. Smiling, I look at your face lit up by the rays of the evening sun. Your eyes hold mine. Under the clear blue sky I stand still, eyes caressing your face. In time, you get up and stand beside the hammock, my need apparent to you. Standing facing me, your eyes dancing with mine, you take off your clothes. Slowly, wordlessly, you kneel on the soft wet sand and looking up into my eyes offer yourself. I move towards you.

The splash of the warm rain on my face brought me back to the beach. The wind had picked up again and in the night sky the baleful moon carried on its fruitless struggle with the moving clouds. You stir and I can feel your face against my thigh. Smiling into your eyes, I reach down to caress your hair back from your face.

It's true.

Nobody loves me, it's true.
Not like you do.
                      -------- From Sour Times by Portishead

It is the last night of the year.

From my chair near the open window, I can see and hear the waves on the other end of the narrow rain-drenched beach. The moonlight is strong tonight so that the drops of rain are like jewels in the night sky. I have been nursing my whiskey, little sips to keep me warm in the cool sea-laden breeze coming in from the window. The half-empty bottle of Talisker sits next to the flowers in a vase on the low table to my right. The billowing sheer white curtains dance with my chair, alternately caressing and then shying away. 

I lean back, close my eyes and think of all the dreams where you have let me love you.

When I wake from my reverie, the wind has quietened a bit. But the rain, it never ceases.

It will be midnight soon. Why are you so far from me?