|
 |
||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
The Secret of Lovers
by Rycke Foreman
Ah, how she loved him: his life, his death. His last minutes. Oh so peaceful...
...So, so intense.
She kept her secret hidden within her folds, embracing her
(secret)
love. His body still warm, she savored the boy’s glorious texture against her impersonal flesh, the taste of his spilled blood. It now tasted of peace.Her
(lover’s)
last moments echoed throughout the small room: The icy, crystalline tingle of the storm’s breath following him in, his white-powdered shoes leaving her puddled and wet. But she did not--could not--mind! His eyes deep, soulless windows, pain-branded with the counted sorrows of a lifelong aria, as if the howling wind outside had been his only companion. Across the narrow floor, he’d cast a simple, baleful glance into one of her mirrors, seeing
(her)
the same franticalm desperation he’d seen yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that...
...the same helpless desperation she had felt. Today. And yesterday...
Melting snow, tangled in with his sandy blonde hair, trickled onto his face, mingling freely with the saline that leaked from his eyes.
Oh! how she longed to comfort the boy
(so sad, so sad)
as he stripped off his worn, black overcoat, let it fall haphazardly to the floor. He had leaned back into her
(touching her!)
and closed his guarded orbs. Such exquisite heat!
(a careless caress...)
For an eternal moment he had remained there, breathing softly, head bowed, cheeks tickled by the meandering streams. Slowly, he unlocked his knees, sliding down the tiled wall until he was sitting. His blue eyes raised to the ceiling--again at her.
(Oh--but who could know?)
Inwardly, she wept. For the young man; for herself.
Though she had no eye sockets, no central nervous system, she could see. And feel! But the boy...
The boy...
There had been nothing to feel as his eyes met their reflection, just the darkness shifting and feeding and growing. Black. Hollow. She could sense no emotions hidden within this oily well: no love, no joy, no sense of place or being. The void was a glutted, sable leech growing fat on
(her lover’s)
barren reserves.
Yet the boy did not harbor rage or hatred, nor any resentment. Almost like a child (this she knew), he hated no one for this absence of love. Laid no blame for happiness unknown.
As she realized these things, she knew too that she loved. But alas--soon enough, he, too, would leave her. All did...
Just one...Just once...Please...
The light--her light--reflected off of his pale, sweat-drenched skin as he brought out thin metal.
(salvation?)
As she sensed the cool aluminum tool glittering in her light, she realized there was a single, lonely emotion buried deep beneath his veil. Dark,
(so dark!)
and neatly camouflaged by the obese void. But in there. And oh--she was elated!
A secret. A secret shared
(with her lover)
His razor danced up his arm, flowing and graceful, a sleek swipe almost as liquid as his lifeblood. A small stream of gore spurted, spattering the wall, bathing her in his warmth. Could she have recoiled, she would have, so bitter it was with his sadness. Inside she wailed. Oh, she lamented, oh to help him! Her love for him resounded, yet only within herself.
She was tormented, for how could she weep for him in thought only?
His life continued to overflow, streaming out where flesh was parted. And their secret
(the secret of lovers)
--that bitter, blackened grief--began to fade. His thoughts languished. A mild, near-pleasant buzz diffused his thoughts as more of his essence continued to escape the ruined flesh.
But was it changing? Mutating? Perhaps it now hinted of harmony, well-being. Relief? Perhaps the room just fancied it.
Her omniscient awareness felt a final tear. It picked a careful path down his pallid face, cautious of crossing another stream lest it fall too quickly.
Briefly, his nostrils flared: the scent of fresh, sheared copper dangled lightly on the air. His smell. He sighed wearily, his head lolling as his muscles lost strength. For the first time since his vague and somehow distant childhood, she sensed, his face revealed true harmony. He whispered:
“I smell the sweet smell
“of my life,
“leaving my prison.”
He drew breath over the span of an eternity.
“I will be free
“my deeds unknown of me...”
He said no more. His glazed eyes stared blankly at the growing pool, but she knew that he could no longer see.
His short, mellow gasps were all she knew.
For a single moment, something inside of him opened. As he slipped into an effortless death, he was suddenly aware. Their beings caressed for an instant--desperate and electric, teeming with their dire need, touching and probing and giving and loving and...
And then it was gone. But he had known her, and she him, if for only a moment. And a lifetime. The dim hum of electricity hovered gently about the room as her mind buzzed, already reliving those last, short, vibrant moments. So, so intense...
...Oh so peaceful...
She held him securely--secretly--within herself. But how to lock her door? How to protect her secret, her lover?
Because ah, how she loved him...
© Foreman, 2010
Rycke Foreman lives in central Arizona with his wife, Miranda, and four children. He's published short fiction for 15 years in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, The Writer's Eye, Flash Scribe, Niteblade and many others. With Miranda, he publishes 69 Flavors of Paranoia (http://www.69fop.com), a small press horror ezine devoted to nurturing the growth of new and established writers. Visit http://www.rycke.com for more short stories, short films and other excursions into the bizarre...