Tuesday, July 28, 2009

She licked her lips like a hungry wolf

They had been friends for ages it seemed; a decade of laughter and tears. Despite several moves that forced miles between them, they managed to keep in touch the old fashioned way; they wrote letters.

Maia loved stationary, and derived great joy from acquiring a vast array of paper on which to send the words that described a snapshot of her life at any given moment. The drawers of her desk were filled with paper in colors that ran the rainbow, was textured or patterned, and even some handmade with flower petals pressed into it.

It didn’t bother her that Jason only ever wrote on plain white binder paper. His tidy handwriting always hovered ever so slightly above the blue lines, the black ink from the fountain pen she given him always stark against the pale paper.

They exchanged thoughts and ideas, philosophies and hopes. They shared the mundane happenings of their lives, as well as their deepest desires and dreams; nothing was taboo.

Slipping into her favorite fringed sweater Maia made her way outside to drop a letter in the mailbox, the thick lavender envelope addressed in the sweeping lines of the calligraphy she’d learned and she smiled as she dropped it into the mail slot.

Turning on her slippered heel she headed back up her front walk, pausing when the headlights of a car splashed across the front of her house like vandals with a bucket of white paint. With a confused frown she watched as the taxi door opened and Jason emerged, his own handsome face very serious.

Jason paid the driver and slung the strap on his black leather duffel bag over one shoulder, standing in the middle of the driveway as though frozen to the spot. It had been at least five years since they had seen each other, their letters never containing photos, their words the only pictures, and he had forgotten how beautiful she was.

Maia’s last letter to him was full of heartache and was stained with her tears. Her boyfriend of two years had left her for another woman, her best friend, and she was devastated. Reading her words had stirred such anger in him that his vision actually went red around the edges and he’d had to take several deep breaths to regain his calm.

He’d always thought of her as a sister, his to protect and comfort, but seeing her standing there in the dark altered his reality. She wasn’t his sister. She wasn’t helpless and in need of his protection. She was strong and independent and in that instant he wanted nothing more than to bathe in her nearness.

Maia could see whatever inner battle he was fighting in the changes of his expression. He looked angry, then anxious, then stunned and finally reluctant. She was sure her own face had run the gambit of emotional responses too, and with effort she pushed them all aside and focused on feeling the energy he was giving off.

He wanted her, and that knowledge sent a great swell of lust crashing through her. Arching one eyebrow at him she licked her lips like a hungry wolf, eyeing him from under heavy lids, and the combined scent of their desire carried them toward each other.

They collided like waves, liquid and turbulent, eager to consume and drown them in their passions. Jason broke free from her lips, gasping for air as she sought to pull him under again.

“Maia, I…”

She buried her fingers in his hair, silencing him with a gentle tug, “Don’t tell me, show me.” With that direction they made their way inside to shake the pillars of heaven.

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