(Heterosexual... kind of)
I wait for night
By Jacqueline Applebee
I don't hide in the shadows, and I don't play tricks in the dark. I am freed by the night, and even if it is Midsummer, and a handful of night hours are all that I have before the long hot day, this time is still mine. The night still belongs with me.
We are partners -- the dark and I. We walk together in the heat of the city. Others try to illuminate the black with sparkling lights; they say it looks pretty, but I know they are all afraid. I would say there was nothing to be scared of, but then I'd be lying.
I put one foot in front of the other, and I dance in the shadows -- I celebrate my life with no source of light but the brittle stars above.
The dark is a living breathing thing to me. The night is my lover -- he holds my hand, pulls me along still-busy coastal roads and down the dunes of Brighton beach.
Further along the sand, the dark dips, my beloved slips over my shoulders, draws my blouse from my back, and quietly laps at my brown skin, now bare in the elements. The night does not speak to me, he just takes, and I give him all he wants. I trust him totally.
A shadow curls over my exposed breasts -- I twirl in his grasp but the shadow remains as a chill on my nipple.
I'm breathless when he pushes me face down in the sand. The impatience of the night overwhelms me. I feel tendrils of darkness reach beneath my skirt. I feel the curling black length press inwards. I am burning up; a dark star that will implode so very soon.
Some far away place, a nightclub thumps out techno beats, but all I hear is the sea as waves sound out below me.
The night transports me back hundreds of years to when this bustling town was still a seaside village, when others came here to make love in the dunes. Their clothes were different, their words were strange, but they loved the dark -- probably more than I, for there was no interruption back then -- there were no rows of hotels with lights that stayed on all night, no fairground rides with illuminated workings. Back then, the swinging oil lamp was their only distraction.
I see my footsteps in the sand and the places where I rolled over on my side. I see the steps and all of the bodies of lovers past, of his previous devotees. And when did so many start to fear this? When did they burn women and men and children too as witches because they could see this? The blazing horror tore open the dark, but it never lit up their minds. All the never-forgotten bodies line the path of history as I travel further back. My thoughts are turned away from the atrocities of the past, even if I know that they still happen today.
The dark caresses me as I lay in the surf where the sea meets the land, and night meets the day. I cry when I come with fleeting shadows that grow shorter, the touches that are fainter. I feel the sun returning, feel myself move back to the present with every thump of my heart. I want to beg the night to not leave so soon. I want to tell him that this is the longest day of the year, and that I'm not sure if I'll make it. But even as I open my mouth, the sun slips into view. I hold up my arm as if to block the glare from my eyes, and as I do, I see my own shadow on the bright yellow sand.
The night is still with me, will stay within me until we meet again this evening.
© Copyright 2007-2010 Jacqueline Applebee