It’s 6pm and it’s finally stopped raining, but that’s life on the West Coast. As I sit here sipping Primativo from the oversized glass you brought me earlier, I can see the sun burst through the low clouds and light the surface of the water. It looks very biblical with the visible rays of light shooting down from the grey clouds and turning the sea into a million million dazzling jewels.
I’ve been writing all day, which has been hard. I always find it hard to write on these gloomy afternoons, but when the story demands to be written, I am it’s slave. No matter how much I hate these dismal days and just want to sleep. I am a creature of the light, and it refreshes my soul to see the sun. Or maybe it’s the wine refreshing my soul. In any case, I am refreshed.
The wide expanse of windows on the water side of the cottage supply a view that can only be described as breathtaking no matter the weather. Out through the glass the water meets the mountains, and they rise up to touch the sky. I have always loved being at the edge of where things meet, at the boundary condition. Here that condition can be seen through what feels like acres of glass.
Behind me the fire crackles in an oversized stone fireplace. It’s been burning for days nonstop, heating the main living area of the cottage and drying the air. The smell of the smoke hangs in the warm room, comforting like a down blanket on a cool night.
I hear your bare feet on the floor behind me. I feel your hand caress my neck. You reach past me and refill my glass, and I can smell your hair and feel the stirrings of arousal. Your scent has always had that affect on me. You set the bottle on the table and I grab you by your waist to pull you onto my lap. I kiss the nape of your neck. You taste of salt, just a bit, and I am aroused all the more.
You turn in my embrace, rubbing your body against mine suggestively and putting a knee on either side of me to settle down on my lap. The big old chair we’re sitting in is just wide enough for this. You wrap your arms around my neck and stare into my eyes. I start to pull your camisole off. The cottage is so remote that you rarely wear more when we’re alone and not expecting guests.
I undress you, you undress me. We kiss, tasting wine and desire on each others lips. We make love there in the chair, in front of the pictures windows for all the world to see, if only there were anyone out there on the water. What a show they would have. We are good together, slow, deliberate in our exploration of each other, but burning with almost tantric intensity.
Afterward you snuggle against my chest. I pick up my glass and sip thoughtfully. We haven’t spoken a single word, but we haven’t had to, our wants and needs match so closely. Eventually you look up at me and smile, and whisper something I can barely hear.
Out on the water the sun has set behind the mountains. It is dark, both inside and out, the only visible light coming from the fireplace behind us and the slow pulse of my sleeping laptop. I am a creature of the light, but you have brought the light inside me. There in the dark I bend down to kiss the top of your head and answer.
“I love you too.”