The White Dress

by | Jun 19, 2023 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

The dress hung down half way between her knees and ankles.

I dreamt I was sleeping under the stars in the southern hemisphere. I knew that because I could see the southern cross in the sky. I could hear the sea nearby and there was a big house up at the top of the beach. It was made of wood and painted white.

The young woman was inside the house, looking for him, calling his name and all of his nicknames that he had before he knew her and the special ones she’d given him. Names that all fitted him perfectly. However, there was no response at all, she started to worry. She went outside to look for him, “he was right here, where did he go?” she thought.

I was just falling asleep when the door opened and she stood on the porch looking for something. The girl from his previous dreams. The one in the white dress. Bare feet, bare arms from her elbows, her thick black hair blowing in the sea breeze under the light of the porch lamp.

She was wearing her favourite dress, the white one, she bought it especially to wear it in this special place, by the beach, for him. There he is, sleeping under the stars, she thought, with some relief. She’d found him. She had to show him that she was angry, that he’d made her so worried. He’d done this before, out of respect for her but she wanted to make sure he didn’t repeat it.

“Are you out there?” She shouted, “What did I tell you!” She had a white scarf around her neck. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak. So she pulled it tightly over her head and came out onto the sand. “Ah, there you are”. The young woman sounded irritated.

She approached the figure lying on the straw mat in the sand. As she reached him, she wanted to scold him but once she saw his face, she felt guilty. How could she make him feel bad? He was out here for a reason. She decided to say nothing.

She came and stood right next to me. I could see the sand between her toes, some stuck to her calf. The dress hung down half way between her knees and ankles. As she looked at me, her face changed from anger to sadness, two versions of the same beautiful image, in an instant. “Come here” she whispered, holding out her hand. Her bare arm shining in the starlight.

The young woman felt the breeze coming from the sea, it “brought back her soul.” An expression she once heard and really liked. As she held his hand very tight, she didn’t want to let go ever again.

I lifted my hand, still speechless and took her hand in mine. It was so soft and warm. She pulled me up and began to walk back to the house, towing me behind like an obedient dog. As she climbed the steps to the porch the light caught her dress from behind. I saw right through it. I closed my eyes. So as to avoid the sight or to keep it in my memory forever? I don’t know.

She’d brought him back home, their home, wishing he’d never leave again. She just wanted him by her side. “Does he ever know how much he makes her worried by just disappearing like that?” She contemplated, pulling him in through the door.

We entered the room. There were candles burning, the light was yellow and shadows danced everywhere like revellers at a silent party. There was a large bed in one corner and a sofa in the other. I remembered because I put them there.

Still incensed inside, she carried on thinking silently, “I should make him regret that, but maybe not now”. Still holding his hand in hers, she squeezed really hard, to show some sort of indignation. Then she turned up the music, and said nothing to him. It was dancing time and she loved dancing so much as did he.

In the third corner stood the tiny hi fi system, about 20 years old but still looking brand new. The music was on low but she leaned over and increased the volume slightly. I knew what she had in mind.

It was their song, the one as if it was sung for them alone. Under the Jasmine Tree by Soraya Ksontini and Mark Kelly. She was no longer angry. She could never stay angry with him after looking into his eyes. Soraya started to sing and the silent shadows around them felt like singing along with her.

As the volume increased, I heard the plucking of the guitar which began the song, their song. Soon Soraya began the first verse, in Arabic and the two of us came together like pieces in a jigsaw. I whispered Soraya’s words in her ear as they began to move around the room, I knew them off by heart.

Her thoughts wandered. “Perfect, what a feeling, dancing with the one you love, who loves you back exactly the same, dancing to our song. The rhythm and lyrics, equal perfection. His hand holding hers the other in the small of her back, she rested her head on his shoulder. First listening to his mesmerizing voice, singing the lyrics of the song in her own tongue. Then to his heartbeat as she lowered her head. The young woman would change nothing about this moment, absolutely nothing.

We moved slowly to the exchange of lyrics between Mark and Soraya. I noticed that her dress was so thin. As we danced, I could feel her skin through the fine material. This was the closest we’d been since we met. A millimetre of fine white fabric between us.

It was the first time she’d rested her head on him having previously danced at an appropriate distance. She had always done in her mind but this was reality. It was so breathtaking, she had a mixture of feelings, embarrassment for sure but she was so moved being so close to him. She wanted to look at him to see his expression, say something but was too shy to do so.

As they moved to the music I felt her head on my shoulder, then it slipped down onto my chest.I became aware that she wanted to speak. A meniscus of tears magnified her eyes which were the colour of freshly mined amber in the candle-light. “What is it Angel?” I asked.

As he spoke, she looked at him, eyes full of tears, giving him a tiny smile, but still she said nothing. She loved it when he called her Angel, she loved it when he could feel that there’s something wrong without saying a word, or explaining anything. He understood her more than she understood herself.

Her mouth opened slightly and she smiled at me. All of a sudden, memories of this morning’s lesson came to mind…”The letter is Daad, same pronunciation, circled mouth, but the tongue has to touch the front tooth at the beginning, not allowing the air for a second, then the tongue goes back and the air blows a bit” The urge to kiss her then had been overwhelming and it returned at that moment.

As their eyes met, it was her turn to mind read. Looking into his hazel-blue eyes, she raised her mouth to his and their lips made contact.

The Kiss

“Your lips are remarkable tonight, like beautiful soft fruit and sweet tasting. Here comes the tingling, oh we are going to be here some time. The slight numbness, like an anaesthetic.

It’s more of a sensitivity, a heightened sensitivity. All of the nerve endings are fighting for a piece of the action. Every part of my lips wants to touch every part of yours. Your kissing back so hard and with such urgency. It feels like the soft fruit will be bruised but it feels good too. Gently now for a moment tracing your open mouth round, tasting your lips with the edge of my tongue. Heightened sensitivity on my taste buds.

Then hard again as you pull my head closer. My lips pushing yours apart so that I can taste your mouth even more. The softness, the wetness on my tongue, your tongue touching mine in an electric meeting of sensual parts all are now at the party as it changes and our mouths merge one. The marathon is half way but two new fresh runners have entered the race and say hello in a warm wet embrace.

Two separate sensations, two marriages made in heaven. Soft sensitive numbing lips and different sensation from the mouth’s other residents, saying a swirling curling hello to each other. One urgent and probing the other shy and reluctant…for how long?

I trace your soft swollen top lip with the tip of my tongue to sooth its tingling sensation bringing warm relief to it. I do the same with the poor lower lip battered and bruised like a boxer in the ring. Come here let me lick it better warm and soothing. Just a game to keep them apart while he seeks his partner in the soft wet void of your mouth. Your grip on my hair tightens and I return the compliment moving my open palm uptime back of your neck, my fingers separating through your thick hair, their tips tantalising your sensitive scalp. You stiffen at this new electrifying sensation, pushing your mouth harder into mine.

This is the next level where the lips take a back seat as the new friends get to know each other very slowly and very tentatively. Hello my friend I say. Hello you say shyly. Are you coming out to play, I say. Perhaps, you say. Let me help you I say. Thank you, you say just for a moment you say. A warm damp embrace wrapping around each other.

Goodbye you say and he makes friends with his old pals, your lips again. Finally leaving them to enjoy each other like it’s their first time, making friends themselves again, like for like, in a soft then hard embrace.Nearing the end, our lips finally signal surrender as with the hundred metres sprint or the marathon, the record is there for a reason. To define the limits of human pleasure. That has certainly been done tonight…one more push from you as you greedily try to smash the record and our pleasure levels…it works…ecstasy.

You open your eyes and they’re black like coal. Like the morning bird. You felt it, I felt it. We again merged as one. The longing is over but the feeling is still there and will linger just as it will in other parts of our bodies. A tight embrace, the only way to diffuse the time bombs ticking within us whose fuse we have just lit.

As the music and the kiss came to an end, our legs turned to jelly. We lay on the bed in our usual position, her head on my shoulder, arm across my chest. As I felt her soft breasts against my ribs she began to speak.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

I replied, “we have to lie this way, it’s for kissing only.”

“No, it’s OK any way you like.” She continued but I was adamant.

“Please, let’s stay like this. Remember what we said. It’s about stillness and calm and where we put ourselves for the best possible contact without waking the troublemakers, the gate crashers, the party poopers who think it’s their party. It’s not, it’s ours we’re in control,” I said firmly.

Then she began to cry again and I held her, kissing the tears away. We lay and I could still feel her pressed against me.

“Yes, I remember it’s better like this,” she whispered. I closed my eyes and she closed hers…no beach tonight, just heaven.

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Receive an email notification for new posts

Loading