Sunflowers (Tournesols) II 14 страница

There was a pause, and I was about to offer to switch places with her, so she could have the bed and I'd take the couch, but there was no need. Her darkness had been dealt with, and as she got up, I heard her giggling.

"You guys already have sides of the bed! Watch out, Frank, before you know it, you'll be an old married couple."

She slid under the covers with me, and I turned over to face her, trying to ignore her comment, and focused on how good it was she was next to me. "Do you want this side or not?"

"No, I'm fine here. I'm sorry I woke you up," she apologized, then turned on her side away from me. "I'll get back to sleep."

"It's okay," I told her. I held out my hand, but it was a long time before I gathered the courage to run it down her back. "We can keep talking if you want."

"Brrrr. You gave me chills doing that, Frank. Come here and keep me warm." She was playful in her words, so it took me awhile before I finally conceded. She did this sometimes, oscillating between despair and mirth, and it was sometimes hard to tell if she was fighting her emotions or just really happy. She pressed into me when I got closer, and I felt better about being this close to her. We spooned, and I wrapped my arms around her, meeting at the base of her stomach. She was still wearing her pants, in spite of my offer to give her something else more comfortable to sleep in. Her bra was gone, though, and I didn't feel the clasp up against my chest. I kissed the back of her neck, smelling lavender from her shampoo.

"You comfortable?" I asked, but she was already asleep.

By morning, the power was back on, but it was pretty pointless. It was six am and the sun had already started to rise, making things visible. The plows were still slow on their way, and Jasmine and I were still barely waking up. I figured that Gerard would have breakfast at Vivian's as well, and I wasn't sure what time he'd be there until. When I first started to stir, I thought that he was with me and not Jasmine. It took me turning over and seeing her blonde hair, along with the flashing light from the kitchen stove, to remember what had happened the night before. Jasmine was turned on her side again, but her torso and arm partially splayed and encroaching slowly my side. I smiled as I edged closer to her, touching her hair and curling it around her ear as I watched her sleep. I didn't want to stay there for too long, because I felt a little creepy, but the wave of emotion that had been our relationship came back to me. I wanted to kiss her forehead, but I didn't dare. I turned away and began to shift off of the bed, trying not to wake her, when I felt her arm grab for my back.

"You're not getting up, are you? Come on, stay in bed, Frank. I don't have to be at work - at either place - and this is the one morning where my dreams actually may compare to reality," she laughed, with a bit of sleep still in her voice. I guessed that once there was no chance of leaving in the blizzard, she had begun to have fun again. I obeyed her command and stayed in bed, and it felt like the winters that we had spent together before. I laid down next to her, on my side, and kept running my had through her hair. Although she was awake, she kept her eyes closed. She began to roll onto her back, face up, closer to me.

"Now the other side of my head," she teased. "It feels so nice to have someone play with my hair."

As I obeyed, I worked my hands over her hair and then under the back of her neck. I found the gold necklace that I had seen the night before, but had nearly forgotten about. It was this one piece of Jasmine that never really made sense to me. She never wore jewellery and eschewed most articles of feminine presentation, like earrings (though I could still see the faint dimples of holes in her lobes when I got close enough), make-up, and most typical clothing. She had been dressing up more recently, and I figured that was to do with her job interviews and this new professional life she had taken on. She liked that purple dress, and the cardigan with flowers, though, and now she had this golden chain that she carried around next to her. There was nothing at the centre of it; it was just a chain with a thicker clasp at the back. I ran my fingers over the chain and made sure it didn't get caught in the soft hair at the nape of her neck. The necklace, so far as I could recall, was also something that her grandmother had owned. This hang-on to lineage in some obscure way, even if it wasn't worn all the time, and this new professional attire didn't seem to cooperate with the same story that Jasmine had been telling me the night before. Did she own herself, this way, wearing this barrier around her neck like that? Shoving herself into these neat little professional boxes, even if she finished it all off with combat boots? In the bed, now, she was just in a black t-shirt and jeans, with her eyes closed and her hair spread out on the pillow. The necklace was a heavy weight, and I kissed around it and asked if I could take it off of her.

"The necklace, I mean, can I take it off? It may get tangled in your hair," I said, adding context. She didn't open her eyes, but nodded softly. I fiddled with it in my stocky fingers before I unleashed it. I took it off her neck delicately, and then laid it close by us, over on the coffee table that my Rimbaud book was on. I smiled as I slid back next to her, and kissed the area chastely where the necklace had been. I was kissing her from before - her back was still to me as I sat next to her.

"There," I said with some finality. "You look much better now."

She laughed a bit, and shrugged. "I thought people usually put on jewellery to look better?"

It was a rhetorical question, but I answered it anyway. "You've always been beautiful without that stuff to me, and you know it."

She was quiet for a moment, her breathing even, and I fought the impulse to kiss her neck again. I realized, in the pit of my stomach, that I had not been holding back. That I had been kissing her, just chastely, and nothing too sexualized, but it had been so instinctual that I didn't even realize I had done it. She had not told me to stop, but I felt awkward. Her silence now because unbearable, and I added to it. "Besides," I contested, "now I can keep playing with your hair and nothing will get caught."

She nodded, and smiled, but didn't say much else. I felt better, and I knew that this action calmed her down as well as me. I began to comb through her hair more and more, being as gentle as I could, to make her morning off from work a good one.

I was glad she had stayed the night, but I would be lying if I didn't admit I was also really confused. I missed her, so much, but I couldn't tell in what way I missed her. I was so content with combing my fingers through her hair, but I also longed for the days where we were together in more than just this. Although I was totally okay with just being her friend, I wanted to kiss her right then, and on more than just her neck, although I would have settled for doing that again. I couldn't believe that I had done it and not realized I had. I couldn't comprehend my want for her, and how it was supposed to be expressed and fit into things. I knew Gerard was in the back of my mind as well, and I loved him so much. I would be lying if Jasmine's comments from the night before hadn't scared me a bit, though. Our relationship was malleable and enduring - it had survived seven years apart - but I didn't want to rush into anything that would box me in. I really didn't want to be thinking about Gerard just then, honestly, and I pushed him out of my mind and focused on Jasmine. I touched the nape of her neck again, lingering on where my lips had just been, and wanting them to go back again.

I moved to curling the hair around her ears, shifting my body slightly to see more of her face, when she opened her eyes. It started me; I had gotten so into combing through her hair that I had just taken for granted that she had gone back to sleep. I was about to go over the small holes in her ears with my fingers, but now she was awake and looking at me with an expression I couldn't quite name.

"Do you want me to stop?" I asked. I took my hands away and leaned them on the pillow. I was leaning over her, possibly too close. She had turned her body towards me when she opened her eyes, and she was lying on her back now. She shook her head, and then put her hand on my side, and moved it up my back, towards my neck, and right where I had been touching her nape, she found the same spot on me. She twisted her fingers into my own hair, and smiled.

"Feels really nice, doesn't it?"

I smiled and nodded as her fingers kept going. I closed my eyes for a few moments, becoming overwhelmed and not wanting to show too much of it. My body was getting closer to hers, and I shifted back a bit. Her hand stayed where it was, and she touched me just slightly on my wrist with her other hand. When I opened my own eyes again, the look she had given me before was back. I found myself thinking back to our conversation from the night before, when I had apologized, and realized what I had done. I wanted to say I was sorry then, but it didn't matter anymore. She was fine, no, more than that. She was a fucking Viking. She stopped running her fingers through my hair, but kept her hand in place as she pulled me down to her, and our mouths met together.

It was very chaste and quick at first, but as we both realized we had brought this forth together, we let go of our cautiousness. There was no misreading signals or apologizing anymore. It seemed as if a big weight was off our shoulders, the past eradicated between us. It was only as our kiss grew in force and frequency that I realized how tired I had been. It felt as if I had been holding my breath for the last twelve hours, waiting for this to finally happen.

I broke away from the kiss and began to go for her neck again, this time kissing with more frequency and deliberate nature than before. She arched her back and spread out her body more. Her arms went around me and pulled me on top of her and I placed my leg in between hers to separate them more and make a place for myself. I laid on top of her and she ran her hands up and down my back, eventually grabbing the tail end of my shirt. We stayed fully clothed and pressed our bodies together like this for some time. I didn't want to move to take off anything, dreading the absence between us. We pressed our foreheads together, and eventually both conceded to the temporary lack. I pulled our faces apart and took off my shirt, kneeling between her legs. I put my hands on her waist and went down toward her pants. I waited for her to nod before I undid the button and pulled them down off her legs. She sat up and began to help, and then tugged on my pants as well. While I was completely naked, she was still wearing her black t-shirt with no bottoms, and I was crouched at the bottom of the mattress. I ran my hands up and down her legs, feeling the hair that had begun to re-grow in the winter months. She smiled and seemed to roll her eyes at my attention to her extremities, and so I pulled myself closer to her and kissed her lips again. My hands held her face and neck at first, and then began to explore under her shirt, feeling her nipples and breasts. I put my hand on her hip as we pressed ours together, and let my fingers drape down between our legs. I touched her opening at first with my hand, then as she began to grow more responsive, I moved my thumb to her clitoris and stayed there for a bit. I kissed her legs as I used my finger, before eventually replacing my thumb with my mouth. She let out a breath as I started and her hips kept moving as my tongue went around. I kept going at this pace for awhile, responding to Jasmine's breathing. Just as she began to quicken her pace and make guttural noises, I switched and began to suck instead of flick and it was only a few second before she began to breathe heavily and worked her hips towards me. Her hand had been in my hair again, touching and encouraging me to go on, but now her grip loosened and she leaned back more. I kept going until I felt her body quiver, and then replaced my mouth with my thumb again and held it in place. I was in awe as I watched her body respond, and kissed her knee as she caught her breath in gasps. I couldn't believe it; sex had become such a private language between people. I remembered all of these things to do, how to do them, and when to stop because of the way she moved, she breathed, and she touched me. Gerard and I had our own language too, and even seven years couldn't make us forget. I knew Jasmine's body as well as I knew my own, and we were having this immense conversation with one another without using words.

She rubbed my shoulders when she wanted me to come up to meet her face, and as I did, my hands went to her shirt again and we both helped it off. We were chest to chest now, and I kissed her neck, her clavicles, and her ears before meeting her mouth again. She opened her legs again and ran her foot up the back of my calf. I broke the mood only slightly to shift over to the side and grab a condom from where Gerard and I had been keeping them close to the bed. I bit the wrapper open, quickly slipped it onto myself, and returned my gaze to her. I didn't look at anything but her; her pale body, her long hair spread immensely, the curve of her stomach, the dip of her belly button, the hair on her legs, everything. She was beautiful and I never took my eyes off of her, trying to read her language like a poem she had recited to me, like one I should have memorized years ago. I knew what was happening before it began, and as I entered her, I held my hands out for her to grab them, like she always did. I stopped reading her and began to feel her like runes carved on rocks instead. We both moaned from the sensitivity of the initial start and then I began to work out a rhythm again. Letting go of my hands, she scraped her nails up and down my back and it made me want to go faster. But I kept stopping. I would stop and then start, shift, and kiss her neck and face again before stopping, shifting, and starting the cycle over.

This was the only downside about being so familiar, about memorizing the poem - you knew when the end was nearing. I didn't want it to stop; I didn't want it to end. Before, when we had had sex I had never felt this sense of desperation like I was holding onto the world in my hands. Maybe because I took for granted that she would always be around, so it didn't really matter. But now I wasn't so sure. Would Jasmine always be around? Would we always be able to communicate this fluently? What if she got pushed to the peripheries of the group, or worse, what if she left like the Vikings she admired? Then there was me. What if Gerard and I did get into a rut and those were the only words I knew? I had remembered this poem now, but what if I paraphrased it in the future, got it wrong, or even worse, forgot it entirely?

What exactly did these two anthologies of bodies mean to me, now that they could exist concurrently? Gerard and I did not own one another, but we did own this apartment and this bed that I was having sex with Jasmine in. We couldn't cheat, but I felt bad. I felt bad because this felt so good, and that thought was completely ridiculous. I pushed it out of my mind and tried to just focus on the moment, but anytime I did, it became too intense. I would stop, shift, and try to start again only to behold the same cycle. It was so incredibly awkward, nothing like the first part, and I wondered what on earth I was doing.

"Frank, it's okay," Jasmine said, touching my neck and running her hands through my hair again. "It doesn't have to last forever."

"Yes it does," I told her, my voice strained. I looked at her feebly, and she gave me a weak smile. I expected her to lecture me on romance, but she held the back of my neck tightly and kissed me again. Our lips pressed together so powerfully that I almost lost myself right then, and died a little, without even moving. We broke away and she whispered in my ear instead. "It's fine. Just pretend it's a dream. Like it's synaesthesia. Like you're falling, again, but this time don't hit the ground. "

I nodded and kissed her again, not knowing what else to do. It didn't seem like something Jasmine would say, and part of me wondered if I really was dreaming. But I couldn't be; I looked down at her after the kiss, and I saw that she wasn't wearing her necklace. It was just her chest, and mine, pressed together, and we were together, inside one another. She was here, and so was I. It couldn't get any simpler than that.

Chapter Six

I heard small noises as I woke up, almost a swarming or the coming of an even larger storm. I heard metal clink up against something, and in my half-conscious haze I wondered if the storm was getting much worse. I turned over on my side to see if Jasmine was still around, but I grasped nothing in the bed. We had lain next to one another when we were done before, still naked, and I had fallen asleep again afterwards. I took for granted that she had as well, and when I found a balled up sheet beside me, it felt as if my stomach had fallen through. In the past four months, I had always had someone in my bed with me. I remembered, in that instant, just how awful I felt being alone some mornings.

I heard small footsteps from the bathroom and then into the kitchen, and I turned on my other side to put the rest of the scene together. The sun was coming through the large balcony windows, lighting up the entire apartment. Jasmine was fully dressed in what she had been wearing the night before and her hair was combed behind her and tied back at the nape of her neck in a loose ponytail. She had plugged the kettle in and the noise from before had been the water as it was gradually warming up. The microwave beeped as well, and she rushed over to it to grab its contents before the buzzers became too bold.

She took her food out and then sent a glance cautiously to the bed to see if I was awake. I was sitting up now, the blankets still on my lower half. I ran my hands through my hair and looked at her through my fingers. I was still waking up slowly, and I was also unsure how this morning interaction would go.

"Sorry I woke you," Jasmine apologized, her face twisted into a sincere grimace. She took her meal to the table and then sat down and began to pick through it with a fork. I shook my head and then slipped my boxers over my legs under the covers and found my t-shirt to put back on. I headed over to the kitchen to see her (and say what? I had no idea) but there was a tension and a force field I was entering into. It was more than just the noises from the microwave and the kettle, although the kettle was getting louder now, too. Before I had a chance to sit down and even really utter a good morning to her, or explain that no, she really hadn't awakened me, she dashed up and attended to the kettle. She poured water into a travel mug and my heart fell, realizing she planned on leaving soon.

"I thought you said you don't have to work today?" I asked her.

She sighed, and then, ignoring the question, held up the kettle to ask if I wanted some of my own. I nodded, just to have something of hers. She gave me a normal mug, destining me to stay stationary.

"Sorry I ate the leftovers," she apologized again. "There is a little left, but not as much as I wanted to give you guys. I figured you and Gerard could have it for lunch today, but then this happened. The snow, I mean. There's nothing in your place that will really make a good breakfast for me - other than this. It feels cheap, eating the gift, but there is still enough for you." She was nervous, and went to fiddle with her necklace like she always did, but her hand grabbed nothing, and she settled her hand over her mug as steam rose between her fingers. "It's past lunch time, anyway, so I doubt that Gerard is really hard up for food right now. He and Vivian are probably having a laugh."

I nodded. I held my tea in my hand and though my stomach was empty and I was really hungry, I didn't want to get up and turn my back. "Just because it's afternoon doesn't mean you have to go."

She gave me a weak smile and then poked through the rest of her meal. She was halfway done, now, and slowing down. We both got really quiet and for a moment I wasn't even sure if she was going to answer me. There was something she wanted to say, something at the back of her mind, but her mind was a stronger force than anything else on Jasmine, and she was good at ignoring things by now. Her lips pursed, then were relaxed again, as if a shock had gone through her body and then passed.

"Do you want the rest of this?" she offered me, extending her utensils and the Tupperware container. "I'm not used to this big of a breakfast and I'm really full now."

I shrugged and took the contents from her. I let my stomach win momentarily and began to eat the food, only to be overwhelmed with how much better it tasted now than the night before. I said something to that effect in between bites, and Jasmine just laughed.

"Thank you, I was thinking the same thing myself. We're good cooks, I guess," she said.

"We should do it again, then," I told her, stopping myself from eating and locking eyes with her across the table. She gave me the same weak smile and tested her tea with her hand over the edges of the mug. Unsatisfied, she placed her hands on the table again.

"I don't know what my schedule is like, and though I don't have too much to do at work, I need to move."

"Do Mikey and Alexa not want you around?" I asked, quite surprised.

Jasmine shook her head. "No, quite the opposite, actually. They really want me to stay and even suggested that I pay less rent. While that is tempting, and Alexa is a lot of fun to be around, it's the holiday season now. I don't want to be around there for Christmas. Even though my room is at the back of the house, and more like an afterthought walk-in closet than a room, I need to leave. No family things. No dealing with that."

I nodded vaguely, our heady discussion of duty and obligation from the night before coming back to me in bits and pieces. I glanced to the bed in the middle of the room, and realized that I should probably do laundry before Gerard came back. And that I would do it alone, just in case, to avoid any fights over the fabric softener.

"What will you do for Christmas instead?" I asked her, wanting to fight that impulse, but not being able to. I took my attention away from the bed and focused back on her and her bags. I saw a sleeve of the floral cardigan sticking out at the corner of one bag, and it made me feel better.

"Same as every year," she responded with a tone that signalled to me that it was all I was going to get out of her. I wanted to tell her that no, she wasn't going to be doing what she did every year because I wasn't going to be around. Not that we had traditions set up, but the winter, those cold months that took us off our feet, they were usually spent together. Now I had Gerard. I looked at the clock in the kitchen self-consciously, wondering how much time I had left before he would come home. The red numbers blinked back at me, and I was defeated. Jasmine shifted uncomfortably in her seat and checked the temperature of her travel mug one last time before deciding it was time to go. She rose to her feet and took a small drink, blocking the clock from my vision and heading towards the door.

"No, wait," I said, taking myself by surprise. I got up too and nearly knocked over my own mug. She seemed affronted for the first time in the conversation. A spark was lit behind her eyes and she stared back at me, wondering what right I had to make her stop.

"Your necklace," I said, and then drew my eyes to the coffee table where the piece was now half inside the pages of Rimbaud.

"Oh, right," she agreed and I stepped outside of the vortex of the kitchen, and grabbed her item. She didn't hold her hand out to take it from me, so as I approached her again, I held the chain up and offered to put it on her. She made a bit of a face, but then conceded, knowing that it would be nearly impossible for her to do it by herself with all her hair in the way.

"How did you get it on before, then?" I asked, and she just shrugged. I went behind her and as she held her long thick hair in her hand, I eased the necklace over her collarbones and then around the back. I linked it up by the nape of her neck, small freckles and tiny blonde hairs visible at the top of her spine. The clasp was difficult and old, and Jasmine apologized for it. She said she didn't know why she bothered with it some days, it felt so useless.

"Completely antiquated, something that I'm not anymore and never will be," she explained just as I finally got the clasp to snap shut again. I smiled, proud of myself, and also thinking of something that Jasmine used to tell me in school. "Never forget, always remember, then again, never say never." It was this little ditty or rhyme she had made up herself, I was sure, and it ended up being her quote on her graduating yearbook page. I was sure that she repeated this so much to get me to stop harping on about Gerard constantly, but I also knew she used it as a tool for her own history and past lineage as well. I stared down at the gold chain that used to belong to her grandmother, and I found myself repeating her words out loud.

"Do you remember?" I asked her, and then laughed at the play on words. "I mean, do you still think about that? Your yearbook quote?"

She turned around to see me now, her face scrunched up and her eyes wide with embarrassment. "This place is like a time capsule," she stated. "Do you keep everything here? The photo from high school, and now that. Oh my goodness, Frank, we were so young."

I found myself getting upset by this response, and the way she said it. I didn't like it the night before, and I still didn't like it then. I only let a bit of my agitation show through. "We are still young," I repeated.

Without lofting us into a repetitious force, Jasmine merely nodded. "Okay, we are. I won't forget that, I guess," she said with a smile, but I was unsure how sincere her words were or if she was making fun of a former self through them. I let it go, it didn't matter, because she was finally smiling. We were standing in front of one another, a small gap between us, with nothing propelling us to remain this close. Her necklace was on, her stuff was packed, and she, at least, was fed.

"So..." I began, unsure of what to say anymore. I wanted to tell her to stay again, but I knew that I could never do that to her. It would only want to make her leave more. I wanted to hug her then, instead, but I had held her a lot last night. I worried in the back of my mind that she would run from me here and never come back; part of me wanted to latch onto her and never let go. But I knew, again, that would be another self-fulfilling prophecy.

"I better get going now," she stated, more plainly than before. She noticed my ease, and how I was willing to give her room if she wanted it. I backed away, taking a step back, and then finally sitting at the table again. I told her to have a good day, very professional-like, and went back to eating. She stayed standing next to me for a while, holding her tea, before she finally reached down and gave me a small hug. It was over just as soon as it started, and it was the most affection I had expected from her - it may even have exceeded it. I was still startled in its wake as she made her way towards the door.

"Thank you, Frank," she told me. "I had a good time."

It was the best thing she could have said, and when the door was closed and I was left alone again, it didn't hurt as much. I went back to eating the rest of the leftovers, but she had been right. This was a lot, and I was bursting.

I waited at the table a long time, even after I had finished the leftovers, before moving anywhere else in the apartment. I was fighting the impulse to go to the balcony as Jasmine left and watch her drive off like the dinner the first night. I couldn't do that; I knew it would hurt too much. It already hurt, sitting at the table by myself, but knowing and feeling these two set of hands all over my body. Yesterday I had had sex with two different people, the two most important people in my life, and the feelings evoked by that were incredible and utterly overwhelming. I didn't know how to deal with them, so I remained perfectly still for a long time, hoping that like the snow from the night before, it would all be covered and blanked out in a few moments. The snow to me, at least the first fall, always had a mysterious quality to it. Jersey got so warm in the summer that it seemed impervious at times to colder temperatures. But the snow itself was something that could block out all sounds, all landscape, and wash New Jersey with the act of forgetting the former month. It could also knock out the power, as I had discovered, and when I felt well enough to stand on my own legs again, I walked around the apartment fixing all the clocks and putting away the candles before I decided to brave the balcony.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14