For the first time in four years, I'm spending a night alone.
No girlfriend. No lover. No friend concerned about me keeping me company. For the first time in four years, instead of falling asleep next to a woman, I will be falling asleep alone to the soothing rhythm and blues
of the Isley Brothers in a bed
that wasn't meant to be slept in by just one.
Soft CK meadowgrass bedlinens, neatly pulled up to my Brazilian mahogany
headboard and illuminated by the soft white light shining through the shoji
screen behind the bed... casting long shadows of my bamboo trees on the walls, on the ceiling, on the dark hardwood floor, and on the smooth folds
of soft jade fabric covering my bed.
...It's what I see when I look back through the open door as I sit on the patio, under the stars of the clear night sky.
It's what I see, holding an ice-cold glass of 151 with a splash of Lillet Blanc.
It's what I see, listening to the soft R&B playing on the stereo inside.
*****
My skin, covered in a thin layer of sweat from fight training
tonight... sitting on the cold concrete of my patio floor, wearing
nothing but the loose Muay Thai fight shorts snug around my contoured hips and
falling over my tired, bruised thighs. My body, beaten and
battered tonight, finally able to relax.
I let my shoulders fall against the wrought iron railing, and exhale a deep
breath. It's been the longest week of my life. It's been
the longest month of my life. I'm tired. But my mind keeps coming back to one... to my June.
I push my hand, still wrapped in tape from fighting tonight, over my
forehead and through the sweaty, matted hair on my head. For a
moment, it's June's hand. She's tending to me after a fight.
After bringing me straight 151 with a splash of Lillet Blanc. After giving me a kiss, and going back inside to wait for
me on the sheets I'll be retiring to in a minute.
Musk. Sweat. Adrenaline.
I can still smell it, all over my body and in my nose. I can
taste it in my mouth. I stretch out my fingers and pull them in
and make a fist. The muscles in my forearm are exhausted and quivering. I imagine that it's not from clinching Dominic tonight and unleashing hell through my fists into his body...
...but instead that my forearms are exhausted and quivering from straddling June's tight, lean
body and running my fingers and hands over her smooth skin... massaging
deep into the stressed muscles of her back.
Working them with the
tips of my strong fingers, around her spine and into her shoulder
blades and down, down, down... spreading her tight muscles outwards in
deep, hard thrusts of my palms.
Hearing her exhale...
Pushing her hair aside, and pressing my warm, rough hands against the
tired muscles of her neck... using my fingers to push and pull in long
strokes downwards.
Smelling that sweet, intoxicating scent... the scent of
a woman's skin -- her skin... close enough for my breath to mist against her body.
Pushing my fingers up against the back of her scalp, running my fingers
through her silky black hair.
I take another sip of my 151, letting the icy liquor run over my lips and down my chin and down my sweat-dampened neck.
For a moment, I imagine she's there again on my bed, waiting for me.
Waiting for me to finish my drink and come to her.
Waiting.
But
not tonight. Tomorrow is game day for her. The biggest
day of her life. She's been studying for the Bar exam for so long now. And I'm not thinking of anything but her -- that
she'll do well. That everything she worked so hard for, for
the past year -- for her entire life, will come together tomorrow and
the path to her dreams will come to fruition.
I flex my fingers, and clench them tightly into fists. My hands feel much more natural as fists.
I feel the blood-stained tape wrapped around them, rough and worn from the night's
fighting. My knuckles feel bruised. But they always
do. And they're always ready to go again the next day.
As I feel the liquor finally slipping me into sweet intoxication, it's June's kiss in my mind. She kisses the bruised knuckles of my clenched fists. She kisses the gash above my left eye from the Bull
Ring. She kisses the bruise Dominic left me on my cheek. She kisses the cut I
have on my lower lip.
Her kiss. Tender. Soft. Picking up my
lower lip and pulling it between her lips.
Feeling her hair falling into the muscled contours of my shoulders and chest, and feeling her breath against my face...
No, I'm not alone tonight, I tell myself. I'll never be again.
