23 January 2006

Half Moon Bay

They'd driven down through the winding hills, zipping along the road's trajectory past La Honda and hidden houses. The sun lit up the trees with fading, golden embers, while the ground swelled in anticipation of the coming dark. They still had hours and minutes and days together, though they knew it would end quickly, and sooner than either expected. Their words were hushed and rushed in fear of silent moments when one or the other's thoughts would turn again to the impending end of their shared journeys. They never meant to hurt each other, though each had in their own, careless way. They made an odd couple, dysfunctional and difficult, yet both had made many conciliations and retreats in order to arrive at this moment.

He loved her, though he felt trapped at times, unable to concentrate long enough on what else he loved. Words would always be his other mistress, and he would never leave her. At times, mostly drunken these days, he felt her warmth and sensed her willingness to give herself to him. But he could not, or would not pull himself away from his other love, the girl who now drove them on into the foothills and finally the wind-swept shores. He looked at her from the corner of his eye and saw again the beautiful, troubled girl who now owned his heart, at least a piece of it.

She really was beautiful, not only in physical terms. She had a light within her that shined out through her eyes and in her smile every time he looked at her. He saw it in the dead of night as they lay together in their bed, while she fluttered about on her broken wings tasting every color of life. She frightened him in her startling beauty, blinding him to all her faults. He could only wonder what light, if any, she saw in him to forgive him his drinking and his silences. What could she possibly love about him?

And like others, he could not see the light he radiated just as surely as she could not see the light she cast. Together, blinded by each other, they rode on in the moment's feared silence. Just before the silence became an oppression, they came upon the place she had wanted to show him. She parked the car and they walked a ways towards the shore before finding a place to climb down over the rustic fence adorning the edges of the park.

As they descended the sloping dunes, he looked back at the moon glistening through the clouds and thought thoughts of passed lives and lost chances. He did not want to repeat himself, but felt the inevitability of fate crashing down upon him as surely as he heard the waves crashing on the surf some hundred yards away. The silver light of the moon cast the world in somber expressions, lacing the edges of reality with magic. They walked along towards the distant lights across the bay holding hands.

After a while they stopped along a steep, sloping dune and lay down together. For a while they simply lay there listening to the wind and the waves. The wind pushed them closer together and sighed as it so often does when two lovers become one. They made love there on the beach while the ocean sang her song and the clouds danced in front of the moon. Sand trickled between their toes as she gently rocked back and forth against him, bringing herself and him to orgasm.

She shuddered and fell breathing hard against him as he stared up at the stars twinkling through the vast darkness. How like stars people are, he thought to himself feeling her warmth still embracing him. How like stars, he thought, burning in the darkness as if trying to attract each other with a flash and a twinkle, a smile and a laugh.

They lay there feeling each other close, knowing the hours and the minutes and the days were counting down against them. They knew this would be one of the last times they would have to bask in each other's naked glory, assuage the aching emptinesses inside of the other and take comfort, for once, in the silence presiding over them.

RRR 2:04 AM

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