Famished

Huge waves crashed against the rocks below, the wind catching the spray and tossing it up and over them, a billion tiny drops that dried almost the instant they touched her skin. There was no boundary between the wild sea and the swirling tempest within her.

She spread her arms and arched her back, opening herself to the wind and the sea. He steadied her with his hands, lifting her and lowering her with the same deep surging rhythm of the waves.

There was no beginning or end to their union, no sharp spikes of pleasure, no loss of awareness. She had no sense of where she ended and where he began. She was the wind and the sea. He was the rocky point she battered against. Her calls of joy blended with the haunting cries of the gulls, soaring and circling, ascending on the wind.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

The final night they were together, he made a bed under the upturned skiffs that had been put away for the winter. He had found some old foam pads that smelled of diesel oil and some sleeping bags that smelled of years of dust, bodies and mildew. It was a warm dark nest, a den, a lair soon rich with the smell of their sex.

They knew it would be their last time. The fishing season was over. The nets were put away. Tomorrow the plane would come to take her home. Finally they spoke. Between frenzied frantic couplings, they tried to put into words the magic of this summer they had spent together.

Both knew it was not a personal love or commitment. No promises had been made. Neither had expectations of the other. They each knew they would part without regrets, agony yes, but no regrets.

She writhed in mind numbing terror of losing this feeling of perfect primal connectedness, terrified of once again becoming the empty hollow host for a dead thing. She wondered if it would die suddenly, like having a knife plunged into her womb or if it would once again gradually fade and wither, imperceptively trickling away as she struggled to keep it prisoner inside her.

She could not let go of him. They fucked endlessly, almost mechanically, fucked until it hurt and still they could not stop. Only the cold light of morning forced them apart.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

She pressed her face to the weathered Plexiglas window of the sea plane that came to take her away, looking down at the endless green and blue that was Alaska, leaving behind the wind and the waves.

It was exactly like a knife, turning in her gut. The thing inside her screamed like a wounded animal. It would not die an easy death. She nurtured it, fed it, kept it alive with memories, savoring the pain like she had the pleasure.

Her husband sensed the difference in her. She was still cold and remote, that was unchanged, but he could sense the life and the pain that filled her. He could almost hear the the wind and the sea as he strained against her tense and hate filled body. She hated him now, hated him for what he wasn't.

It was a year later that she heard that the boy had died. Alaska was a jealous lover. He had drowned on the trip around to the fishing site. All they found was an empty boat. For her it did not seem like death, an ending. He had joined the wind and the waves, become one with the sea. If it had not been for her children she would have joined him.

For the rest of her life, the smell of boats; diesel oil, mold, salt and fish would wake the wounded thing in her soul. It became a ritual to walk the plank boardwalks of boat harbors. She would stand and inhale deeply, pulling the the smell of boats deep into her, feeding the wounded beast.

It never died. She refused let it die. She fed it with the scent of boats, memories of his smile, and the torment of the wind. Sometimes when she could almost feel the world toss and surge, she could hear the echo of that whining moan in her ears.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

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xantu