Fiction from a Song

I think I did promise this.  It is, of course, inspired by Waits's "Kiss Me."  If you have it, you might want to spin it while you read for full effect (ha.  I just know you will, too.).   It's as pure as pure, folks.  (Some of you will be vastly disappointed.  Sorry.)  As always, this is just a writing exercise.  If it weren't, I sure as heck wouldn't be blogging right now, let me tell you.  Sue me.  I have to take my fairy tales where I can find them these days.

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We’ve known each other a long time, more than well enough for you to make free with everything in the house when you’re here, books, TV, music…. For some reason, tonight you’ve picked a playlist full of slow yearning, and as we’re sitting and talking, I’ve been wishing you’d gone for any other group of songs. This one has Thile promising “I Am Yours If You Want Me” and LaMontagne’s anguished “Burn” while you’re there so close. I lose the thread of the conversation as I ponder the special hells I get stuck in and what I must have been like in a previous life to have deserved them. I hope it was fun….

It’s when “Kiss Me” comes on that it happens. I make some random comment about it being a song made for slow dancing when you take my hand and try to pull me to my feet. My immediate reaction is resistance and wariness, which of course makes you laugh. I’m still looking at you to see what the joke is. You just keep holding on to my hand, and even though I know better, I can’t resist that grin.  I grudgingly follow your lead. The next thing I know, we’re leaving the light cast by the lamp, sliding into the semidarkness of the room beyond, and the notes of the song resonate through me.

You’re holding me properly for the dance, but all the humor evaporates. Even in these shadows, I avoid your gaze. Whatever has been hiding there all evening is clearly revealed. It’s too much, and I’m too unsure. It makes me want things that I usually can’t have, so I’m in the long habit of not reaching for them, of slapping my hungry hands away from them. Our eyes meet only a little on this strange ersatz ballroom floor, and each time I look away. This song, it’s going on forever….

But I’m not imagining it, the hand on my back that moves to press me closer to you, the thumb circling my palm. I’m not imagining the way you’ve turned your cheek against mine, moved suddenly so we’re only that one breath-I-can’t-quite-take apart.

“…I want you to kiss me…like a stranger…once again…”

And then you do it. As if it is something you’re trying out. A theory you’ve been working on that you’re not quite sure of. Your hand releases mine to cup my cheek. You brush your thumb over my bottom lip. And then…

“I won’t believe our love’s a mystery….I won’t believe our love’s a sin…”

You pull back and look at me for just a second, and the honest truth is that I think we’re both just a tiny bit shocked. Then something just a little hungry but completely sure passes through your expression before you lean back to me as last of the song fills the room. It will be some time before either of us notices there is no music.