A Touch of Springtime

The Princess felt Spring with every cell in her body. Feeling, she thought, wasn't the same as just being aware of it: rather, it was so much more. Her eyes registered that the dawn came earlier and the nights drew in later. She had to stock up on antihistamines when the flowers came into bloom. She didn't need to wear a heavy coat any longer and when storm clouds came and refreshed the earth with rain, the drops that fell no longer carried a chill. Rather, sometimes she felt tempted to stand in the downpour with her arms extended and feel washed clean by the tempest.

No, Spring had touched her on a deeper level, she thought. She felt it when she looked out over her garden on a Saturday morning. It was 7 AM, the sun was already high and the skies were blue. The hard work her gardener had put in over the winter was paying off: vast arrays of tulips and daffodils had come into bloom, punctuating her vast expanse of lawn with bright explosions of yellow, orange and indigo. Wild daisies popped up between the blades of grass. Beyond, the garden extended down to the edge of a lake: mist was still rising off of it, but it was no longer winter's last chilly exhale, rather, it was more like a puff of steam indicating the heat the day would generate.

The Princess stood quietly, sipping her coffee out of a white porcelain mug. Her feet were bare: she felt the polished texture of the wooden floors beneath her.

Seasons were odd to her at first. She was a child of the Equator: the sun was constant there and heat never fully retreated. One could sit outside in a café on the Boulevard de la Liberté in Douala just as easily on an October morning as an April one. She remembered just such an October morning: she wore a grey Chanel dress and high heels, her sunglasses firmly affixed to her face to protect her eyes from the brightness of the Cameroonian sun. An obsequious, almost impossibly thin waiter in a starched white jacket brought her coffee without a word spoken: she merely had to nod. After all, as Father told her, she was a Princess. The coffee came in a small white porcelain cup and a steel coffee pot. She then sat back and observed the colour, bustle and noise of people and traffic.

So long ago. The Princess could not have stayed there.

She took another sip of her coffee. When she had first experienced seasons upon arriving in America to go to medical school, it had come as a shock. Freezing hitherto had been confined to an ornament on Father's desk, a snow globe which she recalled taking awkwardly into her six year old hands. It contained a Parisian scene, including the Eiffel Tower and Montmartre. She had turned it upside down, carefully, as Father had urged, and shaken it. When she turned it back, the flakes had fallen. But that was not the same as being in Philadelphia, exhaling hard into the grey dawn and seeing her breath form into mist. Nor did it prepare her for the masses of white flakes which the sky poured down onto her hair and shoulders. She became like the other students, wrapped in a dull, dark parka. There was no Chanel nor café on the Boulevard de la Liberté. Rather there was a diner that looked like it had been converted out of a railway box car, stamping the snow off her feet on a black doormat when she entered, and the watery brew that Americans dared to call coffee.

But that was long ago too.

She had moved South to where the seasons had been more reasonable. She had prospered. She had adjusted. She had a home of her own, and she was standing in the morning by the window of her palace. It was a quiet realm apart from the sound of the occasional passing car, the birds singing, and the click of cicadas communicating to each other. She stood at the threshold wearing her green silk robe, so finely woven that it almost shimmered like it was made of a green metal.

She sighed. She saw bees making their slow and steady progress up her garden, taking nectar and carrying pollen from flower to flower, fertilizing. The birds that sang, she imagined, were male and female singing to each other, calling to each other. No doubt animals in their burrows were still nestled in, and sensing warm bodies, coupled and mated.

She took a deep breath. Could not the scent of flowers too be construed as Nature's musk?

Without thinking, her hands undid the knot on her belt, and her robe fell open.

She put her mug in the sink and wandered back through the house. Exposed, the cool air touched her body. She felt Spring. She was part of it. Warmth surged through her.

She had met him online; they had never met in person. She was a Princess, and she had her castle and her carriage in the form of a green Jaguar, but there had been no consort. He was stuffed into the distant, chilly corner of Europe's attic, where it rained even more than where she was.

It could not be, she thought. His life was there, hers was here. She wandered into her bedroom. The space was dominated by a king sized bed with crisp white cotton sheets. A vanity table with a large mirror sat in one corner, her cosmetics were perfectly arranged by brand and height around the reflecting surface. The scent of jasmine perfume pervaded the room, a leftover from a candle she had burned the previous night.

She thought of him and felt Spring. Her robe fell to the floor. He was a writer and she wanted him to create stories for her: after all every royal court should have a poet. Yet, she wanted more than words.

She lay down on top of the sheets, her dark skin providing a stark contrast to the pale bedding. It wasn't unlike the contrast he provided to her, she thought as she shut her eyes. She imagined his pale skin next to her warm ebony tones. Involuntarily, she bit her lip and arched her back. No, he wouldn't want her to bite her lip, she thought, rather, they were there for kissing.

She had lost touch with him, as people do when life gets in the way, but she had just emailed him. He replied. She wondered if he felt this same heat, felt Spring. Stuck in his chilly attic, was he thinking of her? She had hoped that sending pictures of her standing in front of her house, her car, the top button undone on her blouse, would spark such thoughts.

She smiled at the thought of him wanting to kiss her just as much she wanted to be kissed. In his thoughts could he see her? Her lips, her eyes, her body: could he see the stiffening peaks of her breasts, could he detect the scent of Spring coming from her?

She imagined running her hand through the remnants of his once thick hair as he kissed her. She felt Spring and imagined his lips and mouth touching and loving her breasts, her nipples, down over her belly and to her sensitive vagina.

She gasped. Spring was on the cusp of summer and heat was rising. No doubt were he there, he would be gentle but relentless. He would want to know what it would be like to taste a Princess. She felt a surge, she cried out, she rewarded him.

She wanted to feel more of the season. That would only come if their contrasting flesh combined, she thought. She opened herself, she welcomed him. She thought of his hard arousal and how it would feel when he would enter her.

Her back arched. They had talked about this in late night telephone conversations long ago. Through words she had detected his scent, felt him inside her: when he cried out, she felt him release. She remembered all this and felt her body move as if he was above her, making love to her.

She wondered if all she was feeling could be sent across the ether to him. Her medical training told her this was in the realm of superstition but surely there was more to life than science? There were emotions that were impossible to explain and sensations that bordered on magic. He was in the middle of his day, perhaps sitting at a computer and writing. Would he suddenly think of her, lying in that bed, moving, touching, feeling? Perhaps he would have to be alone and feel her in the distance, contemplating her heat alone.

She felt Spring and its rhythm increase. She wanted not just to feel one with him but his boiling onrush: she was a Princess, this should be a gift she could command. She would grab tightly onto his shoulders, then his back, feel him shudder as the remnants of control were lost.

She cried out. Here it was, that moment when she would have what she wanted. She felt Spring and felt him. She could almost hear his cries mingling with her own. Her entire being tensed, as if her body was trying to control all the sensations crashing through her. It was all in vain. She felt it, she felt him and her and Nature all connected.

Her breathing stilled. She opened her dark eyes. The air was still except for the sound of the air conditioner switching on. She felt Spring and knew that it could be just as much still as active: on quiet evenings, she would sit on the porch and drink chilled white wine out of a large glass.

She shut her eyes again. The air conditioned air, heavy and leaden in chilling effect, touched her body and made her dark skin break out in goosebumps. She thought it would only cool her temporarily. "By royal command," she thought with a smile, she decided would slip beneath the sheets for a time and sleep. After all, perhaps in the twilight corner between wakefulness and dreams, she thought, she would find him again.