rainey nites


Stumbling to the door for lack of land-legs due not to alcoholic or hallucinatory substances, only to the excess of the perfection we felt we had a grasp on so whole-heartedly that nite. Permanently embedded on our faces for days would be the smiles formed that very nite- along with a deep hold on a future we had imagined in our thoughts.

Jake fumbled at the key-hole with his set of 15 keys attached to a chain wallet that could only be explained by his extreme fear of misplacement. Going through them one at a time as we stood in front of the institutional white metal door to he and Walter’s firstapartment at 37 Apple Tree Lane I couldn’t help but run my lips down and around his neck, my fingers running a maze through his newly crew cut yet still curly black hair. It was a nite to remember, as they say. The metal piercing in my lip caught a ticklish spot around the side of his neck, near his hairline- his keys dropped to the ground. I could hear the clashing as they fell and all I could do was kind of giggle as his hands scuffled in the dark nite around my ankles and combat boots to try and rescue them from underneath the ebony ball gown I had chosen to wear that nite.

The porch lite hadn’t been flipped on before we left so the only lite we had on our side was the glowing full moon, currently hidden behind dark looming storm clouds on the outskirts of town. Bent over at the waist he had left his irresistible little tush at my rendering. I ran two forefingers across the waistline of his black suit pants and let one venture inside to tickle the outline of his boxer briefs and the skin underneath. I could feel him shiver under my touch. He was ordinarily the one to make me tingle- but this nite the storm had let my submissiveness subside and my touch surprisingly caused the chill down his spine as opposed to mine. Finally, after 6 months, I was able to get that feeling out of him. (This was our 6-month anniversary, and truly the first time he shivered at my touch, not just mine at his.) He stood up, and peered down at me like I was a child that needed attending, discipline. He still had that domineering role even though I seemed to be freer that nite. His stern look didn’t last for long though. After I pouted and shrugged and placed both hands, palms up in front of him- ready for punishment, he wrinkled his little nose and his glasses rose on his face, his full lips creased at the corners to smile at me.

“You are just tooooo cute,” he would say in times like these, and he did. He rubbed his nose against mine and smiled. An Eskimo kiss. The storm clouds overhead let out a roar and a barrelful of wetness in slow drops that alerted Jake back to the issue at hand. He turned his head to look back at the door that was keeping us out in the rain and pulled my under the awning that hung out a foot from the roof above. His hand in mine, I couldn’t help but take advantage of the situation. In reaction to the awning now protecting us from the drizzles falling around us, I pulled him away into the empty parking lot that was home only to his little Toyota, Pepe, and the rain that was dripping in vertical showers overhead.

“Jake? For me. . .” I looked up to him with puppy dog eyes and asked, as we stood still in the middle of the blackened parking lot. Then, before he could even open his mouth to list all the reasons we shouldn’t be outside playing in the rain, I took both his hands in mine, and pulled him near. Nose to nose again, he grinned, looking up into the sky as the rain began to poor in uneven showers. At the bursting sound of a thunderclap I let go of his hands and just twirled around in endless circles like a little girl lost on a rainy day- arms spread wide open and taking in everything that surrounded me. I heard a laugh escape his husky voice and almost immediately two hands clasped around my waist and twirled me into them. His blue eyes (the first thing I ever really noticed about him) delved into mine- like they always did- like he was looking straight through the child in me, into the woman that was completely, and utterly, in every way shape and form in Love with him.

“Forget it huh?” he said, laughing about the keys lying in clear sight on the front slab now, due to the litening storm that surrounded us. We danced and twirled in the rain- circles and circles and circles again- until when we stopped the world around us was only a neverending spiral with no clear end and no finite beginning. That was us. We laughed at the wetness that fell upon our dress attire for the evening, and giggled at the fact that at this time on a Saturday nite, we were the only ones taking advantage of the rain that fell so freely around us. We beamed from ear to ear because we were together and that’s all that mattered right then. This was us. This was everything that could ever describe us all wrapped into one nite.

We’d met on a nite much the same six months previous due to mutual friends and massive amounts of alcohol and what seemed to be adolescent body parts. Nites like these were what made us possible just because of the pure chaos of it all. We were only at peace when the rain was falling or the storm was peeking overhead—only because we never fought. Nites like these were what defined us only because of the fact that these nites were the very things we were in Love with—each other was not the question- it was the nite, the rainy nites, that captured our hearts.

We knew that then, and we never wanted to give it up. At those very thoughts that muddled around in our heads, the thoughts of an eternity together. . . forever, a Love of the ‘stars’ as he would put it, as he did put it the very first nite-- we froze- like there was this invisible force field between our bodies. We were nose to nose, so close we shared a breath- and we knew exactly what the other was thinking at that very moment in time. This is it. I Love you. Outside the storm had gone on, but here, subsided. We stood in a pouring wetness in our best clothes, not a care in the world- the thunder our orchestra, the lightning our spotlite.

“Talia. . .” He didn’t have to speak another word. Hand in hand, we followed one another, no one leading the other, to the stairs leading to the locked door. I kneeled down to pick up the keys and without a fumble unlocked the apartment door we had been laughing hysterically in front of an hour before. Solemn and serious, in Love and lust, we walked through the archway and closed the door behind us.

~*..*~

It was dark and empty- and it enveloped us- the warm apartment air stuck to our damp bodies like the humidity on an Indiana summer nite. Only the lite from outside illuminated us, through the bay window and the 4x4 in the front door. We stood there, both knowing exactly why we’d come in, but also both afraid of the repercussions, the consequences, the meaning behind it all.

He closed his eyes and I let my fingers slow dance across his eyelids- wiped the moisture away. Taking my finger to my mouth, I tasted the rain drop I just rescued- a salt water tear surprise. Looking up to him, nearly confused, and heart aching for him, our eyes met again, and our lips this time.

Hand in hand we walked up the beige carpeted stairs. Stopping at the doorway, he pushed the door open in front of me. He cocked his head, biting his lip, trying for a reassurance from me that everything was ok- was going to be ok, and would forever be that way afterward. (after we had sex for the first time, because nothing would ever be the same, and we both knew it deep down) I strolled in without a second thought- because rationale and thought were not leading me now, the thump in my chest was. I knew that.

As I sat down on the queen sized bed that lay on the floor in the corner of his very first apartment, Jake lit the honeysuckle and jasmine candles I had bought the week before. First the one on the windowsill, then on the computer desk, the book shelf, the nite stand, and finally the cake candle on the dresser. The four bare white walls that surrounded us were suddenly illuminated, as was his figure in the empty room. His 6’1” silhouette stood in front of me, not knowing what to do- shaking a bit under a $500 suit he’d bought just for this- our 6 month. He never shook before, he was always so sure, but this time we shared the innocence and the tingle of the first time. He took me into his arms like an epiphany had come to his shaking body, and somehow he knew exactly what to do, when to do it, and how.

Jake’s lips covered mine and seemed to take the very life out of me, and then shock it right back, his arms embraced me and brought me closer to him than I was to myself, and somehow- through the awkwardness of two virgins on a nite in the sixth month of a relationship that was to last forever that very nite- we made Love as the flickering candles allowed the shadows of our pasts and futures to dance around us. Soon the would dance within.