Vintage Tryst

The rain is gone now. Days absent, the reprieve it gave from the heat is barely a memory as a bead of sweat threatens my lap, slowly tracing my jawline. I’ve just finished eating a solo version of a favorite meal once shared with the girl who wanders the corridors of my mind.

Staring at my glass as I swirl the blood red contents, I’m enthralled; rapt attention on the wine slowly legging the sides and rejoining the reservoir in the glass’ overlarge bowl. Spinning the stem clockwise against the flow of it’s sanguine contents, the etchings spanning the side from stem to lip provide the surreal effect of it’s seeming to move much faster than it is. Would that I could affect this change in the dial gracing my wrist, hurrying the languorous hands on their way to my reunion.

Lifting the glass to my mouth, I can feel the engraved lines pass my lips eagerly, invading my mouth like the tongue of this absent lover. Red fluid cascades over my lips, my tongue; filling my mouth, and coursing my throat with it’s sweet tannin. My body warms in response to the repeated brush of lips, mine and this goblet, and the intoxicating exchange.

I’m alone in the house, separated from the world by walls and miles of imagined solitude. The house is not empty, though; filled to overflowing with remembrance. Dipping my finger into this borrowed Lethe, the tepid liquid grips my fingertip gingerly, hesitant to let go as I slowly caress it’s surface and begin to pull back from it. The drop hanging from my finger looks more like my lifeblood than is comfortable, hanging suspended above the glass until the weight of its own mass sends the droplet plummeting back into the cloying depths from which it was drawn.

I draw my wet eager finger to the rim of my erstwhile lover, circling round and around, skirting it’s edge slowly. The brush of my practiced hand elicits response from my crystalline companion; singing from the touch, echoing the cries of the woman I’m missing. Slowly it gets louder; at the climax the crystal cry fills my ears with it’s fevered pitch. I close my eyes and rest my head back; imagining mirroring situations and letting the accompanying emotions sweep me away for a moment.

Finally I draw my touch away from my escort’s labrum delicately, allowing the decrescendo to ring it’s dying peals through my ears and this near vacant room. Reticent to open my eyes, I allow myself to indulge these visions playing across the back of my eyelids. In the darkness, she is here with me.