Saturday, October 23, 2010

Hazel Rims

I felt myself leave, and suddenly I was floating in the corner of the room, spying on a girl who looked and sounded like me, but wasn’t me. She had an unmistakable cool about her, slipping on a pair of aviator sunglasses and laying on the bed next to him.
            He propped himself up on his elbow, and his peppered gray hair fell across his brow. He couldn’t have been more than 26. The color of his hair reminded me of a rabbit I once had, called Pepper. It was grey, but not the grey of an old man. More the grey of a mysterious stranger, clouded in dimmed lighting of the club and now in the dim lighting of his hotel room.
            The girl that was me and was not me touched his lips with the tip of her finger. Surprisingly, I could feel them. They were soft, and I wondered if he would kiss me. The girl that was me and was not me looked into his eyes. The pupils were large round orbs, barely making his dark hazel irises visible. Hazel rims surrounding deep, black holes in the universe.
            He pulled the girl that was me and was not me closer, and touched her chin with his fingers and met her lips in the space between them. His lips were sweet, and he enveloped my soul—our soul, the girl that was me and was not me—in that kiss. I knew then that I had been missing this before, this charismatic explosion of lust and passion and love that should accompany a first kiss, and had circumstances been different we could have been soul mates.
            He pulled away, looked at the girl that was me and was not me, and stated quite frankly in his Canadian Irish accent, “Wow. That was awesome. I mean, if that hadn’t been good that would have really sucked. But no, no…that was awesome.”
            I liked the way he said “awesome,” elongating the “a” sound into a long vowel so it sounded like aaawesome, like when the doctor makes you say “Aaaaw” when he’s checking your tonsils, only in a sexier voice that I had never heard before. I laughed and we kissed again, with the same desire as before, and again I thought I had been missing this feeling that should accompany a second kiss, and had circumstances been different we could have been soul mates.
            We would lay there, the three of us: him, me, and the girl that was me and was not me. Our bare bodies touched, and he would talk to me about people I didn’t know as if I did, and I sometimes wondered if he really knew who I was. Regardless, we talked, then we kissed again, each time the little explosion of could-have-been love escaping his lips and charging mine. We would talk more, he would move my hand to touch him, and knowing his drunkenness prevented any type of an erection, I would move it back behind his head and kiss him more. That seemed to satisfy him.
            I looked over his body. He must have once had an amazing body, but time and age had definitely done its part. His left shoulder was covered in a finished tattoo, and the right was the canvas for a work in progress, one that would eventually look like its counterpart on the left. I traced the lines of the unfinished masterpiece with my finger, and he watched me do so.
            He then grabbed my hips, my bare, white hips, and flipped me onto my stomach. I giggled as he did so, touching my sensitive spots that rarely get such attention. He sat on my back and began to massage my shoulders, moving down my back and rubbing his well-worked palms over my body.
            “Gawd. You’re such a skinny bitch!” he proclaimed, and slapped my left cheek playfully. I snorted at the ridiculousness of such a statement. The girl he was touching, the girl who was me and was not me, was far from being what anyone would consider a skinny bitch. Not because she was fat, but she was hefty, and not because she had never been a bitch, but because she usually was not. Regardless, it was the last thing I expected him to call the girl that was me and was not me. He may have said it sarcastically, may have said it to get his piece of ass. He may have meant it. The girl that was me and was not me really did not care.
            He laid down on top of the girl that was me and was not me, and I half watched from the corner of the room and half felt him on the bed as he breathed lightly into my ear. He rolled over onto his back onto the bed, and I laid my head on his chest. He stared at the ceiling.
            “Do you ever look at the ceiling and see the little lines start to move?” he asked, seriously. I propped my head on my hand and laughed.
            “No,” I said. “But then again, I’m not on any drugs.”
            “What? Neither am I.” A pause. “Okay, maybe I am.”
            “Ecstasy?”
            “How did ya know that?” He was baffled. But from the moment I saw his pupils that were discs inside his irises, I had a feeling.
            “Your eyes. They’re dilated.”
            “Oh.” A pause. “Do you want some then?” Again, I laughed. The girl who was me and who was not me had only smoked a bit of weed in her life, and mostly stuck to alcohol and never had taken any other drugs. The only reason she knew anything about ecstasy was from what she had been told by her college roommate: you can usually tell if someone is on X if their eyes are dilated and they love touching and being touched. He seemed to fit the description quite well..
            “No thank you. I’m drunk,” I replied, assuming this would be good enough reason not to. He seemed to think so, and didn’t ask again. I moved to get up, and he pulled me back.
            “Where are you going?” he seemed concerned.
            “I’m just going to the bathroom,” I lied. In all reality, I had floated back down from my corner and reentered my body. I was whole again and the girl who was so cool and collected was gone, and I had really got up to redress and leave the room. Leave the hotel. Like a hooker after she was done earning her pay. I felt dirty. Used. But somewhat elated at the experience I had just had with such an attractive, foreign man.
            I switched on the light in the bathroom and looked at my naked body. I touched my breasts, my stomach, my love handles. Skinny bitch, ha. How ridiculous. How funny. How much I wished that I really were. I sighed heavily and went back to the bed. I was now fully myself, and switched off the lights. I checked the clock. 3 a.m. I needed to be up in three hours for the conference. The reason I was in Canada in the first place. Or maybe the reason I was here was for this. To meet my could-have-been-soul-mate and have fireworks pass between our lips the first, second, third, fourth, and every time we kissed. Maybe that’s why I went. To experience what it should be like to love and be loved, by my could-have-been soul mate, as the girl who was and who was not me.

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