Explicit Excerpt:

A full week has passed since you left and I still do not know all the parts which comprise your name. My blasé self, went along with your request, 'no names, no pack drill', and your desire for mystery, my romantic self, happy for the twinkling display of your cells, dancing in the dust mites broadcast in the shafts of light splintering through gaps in hastily drawn curtains.

Later that first morning, I drew back the drapes, leaving only cream lace curtains between sun, pane, and nakedness, pale skin patterned in the shadows created by the fabric at the window. 'Two worlds colliding...' Paloma sings and I'm a crash-test dummy.

"It looks as if you are wearing a dress," you said, fishing the phone from your pocket, you pointed and clicked.

The image now pinned to the mirror at my dressing table where I sit brushing my hair, the depths of my bed reflected-dishevelled, stark white juxtaposes black, and I remember how you disrupted it, dragging sheets and counterpane off, pushing pillows to one side, searching for the phone tossed there at some point after the shutter blinked.

"Leave it," I said pushing you back, the crumpled bedding beneath you. I undressed you again, undid the work of your leaving, unbuttoning your shirt one tiny fastening at a time, exposing your torso, army fit, bathed my face in you. Breathing deep, as your fingers wreathed my hair assisting my downward path, from nipple to navel and beyond, the zip at your fly slowly unlocks a tooth at a time with an acoustic crackle, then silence, all silent, except for the swish swash of tyres in the Sunday snow, slush, squishing, rhythmic, round and round, setting my pace in synchronicity, matching motion, round and round, up and down, my luscious rediscovery of your hard self. Helpless now, you don't resist, the mislaid phone forgotten as I take you in, moist tissues glide you down into my open throat for receipt, your sigh alerts me, tingles messages to my core.

I pull back; "wait there, don't move," I murmur and rise. The kitchen is only a few steps away. Returning, your lower half is naked for me, trousers and socks discarded alongside your shoes at the foot of my bed, shirt parted, contrasts the darker hue of your skin, emulates the look of my skin alongside yours, vanilla and mocha, oh such a deliciously decadent combination.

I cannot speak, so I don't try. My mouth is full. Three cubes, unyielding against my teeth, glacier cold, I reach for you again and jostle you into position among the blocks, your sharp intake as fierce cold, so cold it's hot, crushing your velvet coat, you're momentarily winded as if you've jumped into a freezing lake, and you shrivel a little before my cupped hands weigh you and bring you back to attention. Imprisoned between my lips, among the ice, a carving of skin, chemistry triggers a reaction, alters mass and structure, solid to liquid, soaking the sheets, molecules pooling beneath you.

Growing harder as the cold flees in the thaw and temperature rises, your soft groans match the sound of the easterly wind, threatening blizzard, and I listen as it howls, competing with traffic and audible pleasure as I toil. Your hands are in my hair, caressing, cherishing, fingers moving, I'm speechless, gagged by you, until releasing you, I move upward, meet your mouth, and we kiss, French kiss, soul kiss, I prepare you, lowering myself slowly onto you, waiting for completion, speared like a fish on a harpoon, your potent shaft snug within, bespoke as if I've had no other inside me, as if we were mutually tailored, handmade, crafted a cell at a time, and joining creates a paradigm of excellence, a wordless mission statement, I move up and down slowly, our perfume rises between us, enters my senses, I drink it, it's nectar, my coltish legs, strong and agile, give me rise from you, rise and fall, like riding at a trot, my essence thick and viscous in the saddle, coats you, like treacle, cloying, sliding slowly, thickly easing passage, stickily pushing home into my depths, you're moving gently to join me on my descent, pushing away on the ascent and with each fall, I force you into the bedding, hard, so hard, we're rocking, our reflected selves in the mirror of the dressing table where I now sit, preparing for my day, and I wonder when I'll see you again.

A soft purr, I check my phone and smile.

"Lunch? Tomorrow? Battersea Park? Lunch in a bag. I'll meet you at the Hepworth sculpture next to the lake. Two o'clock."

Unusually, my deft fingers will not work to order and all fingers and thumbs, I reply.

 

Tame Exceprt:

I'm swaddled in unwashed sheets, willing away the hours, until at last, I rise, wash and dress, my heart doesn't fail though it seems it may, my blood rising and falling in a pattern of waves, a tsunami rushing in my head, a thrilling tinnitus, which clears my passages and thrills me.

Little white panties, no bra, I thank my genes and compact breasts, shirt, white; my trusty little black boots must stay at home, snow underfoot. I'm sensible, I'm still healing, and I must not piss off the divine doctor Benjamin O'Carroll.

A cosy, black oversize sweater completes me, but I take my parka, the fur-lined hood is too tempting. At the gate I pause, look up, delve for my iPhone and photograph the single red geranium gamely standing proud in the window box, a vivid splash of pizzazz amid white weather, like blood on bandages, and I shiver.

On my journey I freeze-frame images of snow covered paths and scenery, it's unusual to see such a settling in the city, passers-by look grim, thin lines for lips, pinched faces, buried hands, hunched shoulders, with the exception of children, who skip and gambol like lambs in spring. If only they knew. Their effervescent excitement matches my mood, the expectation of meeting rises from depths to surface like bubbles in champagne, a steady stream, tiny pockets of air pop at the top and I imagine them filling my nostrils from flute.

He is seated in the middle of a bench, among a long row of benches. His endless legs stretched in front of him as if it were a day in summer, hands in pockets, he's waiting, but looks as if he is not waiting, and I wonder if he's seen me, I don't call out, but keep walking, steadily, a straight line, a beeline to his side. He's on his feet and strides toward me as if in a scene from a movie, and I'm poleaxed, a quiver of arrows scatters my nonchalance, serenity takes flight.

"A pair of swans," he points. I halt a foot short, and my eyes follow the direction of his index finger, "they mate for life." Grabbing my good hand, he tugs me gently along with him to the stone surround, sidestepping others, they fade into my distance, and we're alone as we were on the first night that he took my hand, everyone else vanished as if they'd been put into a stage illusion and puffed away in a pall of smoke. A curve of protection from my ribs while my heart hammers, I wonder at the music in my ears, birdsong, splashing water, a background city symphony, although familiar, now strangely alien. Looking into the depths, we laugh at our rippling reflection, and I reflect on the mirrors in my bedroom, marvelling at my form dwarfed by his.

His long, curative fingers stroke.

"Your place? I have lunch, in the bag, over there..." A brown paper sack lonesome on the bench.

"Yes."

I breathe again; air hits my lungs and is expelled with torridity. I match his stride, retrace my steps. His height dominates but my legs are long, we are liken to a lifetime of dancing pairs, displaying a perfect Argentine tango, mutual footfalls make two/four time away from the park as lunchtime approaches and despite the bleak white, bracing cold, London's workers in need of escape make their way in, ablaze in a riot of colour, woolly hats, mitts, scarves and coats. He pulls my hood up, shrouding me and draws my hand alongside his into the intimate haven of his pocket.