The Anniversary

It was a cool Texas night. Autumn was fading into winter. But she did not know it. Had she thought of it, she might have had some poetic inkling concerning the weather or the changing of the seasons, but her mind was elsewhere. Hundreds of feet up in the air, protected by the shatterproof windows of her hotel room, the temperature and time of day were far away from the landscape of her mind.

Love was in the air, as is often the case during and after a wedding. Lust, too, was present that night. Two emotional warmths amid the chill the wind had brought from distant deserts and shores. She was drunk, to be sure, but the clarity of the sensation shined through the haze of the alcohol clouding her mind. He was on top of her, inside of her, and she could do nothing about it, even if she had wanted to.

Caught between impulses to resist and the desire to wait for what came next, her mind continued to wander. Neither here, nor there, she felt what was happening. A part of her trapped in a moment unexpected, one she did not want to end. Another part of her freed in a surge of emotion, watching herself watching herself. And it was magic.

Her hands caressed and attacked her lover. His body was still strange to her, and this was a new that she would never get used to. He did not seem to mind. He understood her confusion, her unbearable pleasure. He just smiled and kissed her. For, that night, she was loved.

And still is.