Her Words

Author's Note:

I hope you enjoy this story, but please know beforehand that it is not explicitly erotic, and even then, not until the very end. As always, I hope that you can help me to improve with your thoughtful and constructive criticism.

*

It begins for them in an art gallery on a Sunday afternoon. He is there simply to enjoy the art, a busman's holiday perhaps.

If he's fortunate he might take inspiration from pieces in the gallery. He knows art. He is himself an artist, a man who sees the world around him and feels an unsatisfied hunger until he has made his own artifact of it. Often he must make a painting, a drawing perhaps, a tangible something that reflects what he has perceived, something that absorbs the external world into his being and expresses it outward again. It is the artist's pang to experience deeply.

One of the paintings has captivated him. It is a scene showing a cove on a lake, rocks and pebbles rising above the water and tangled underbrush leading beyond to forest. He has been to this place, at least to places like it. The painting takes him to these places as if they were hung in the gallery of his memories. He can smell the wood smoke from the fire, can hear the wind whispering through the white pines and the rustle of the waters through the pebbles. The bush, wild, unknown but comforting, being alone in nature and not separate from it. His mind drifts there for long moments.

He might purchase this one, so powerful, so inviting to him. He lifts the gallery guide to read about the artist, a name he doesn't know. But the light is dim where he stands and the print is small, so holding the guide in front he whirls around to catch better light.

Shock! He has turned straight into her, the woman striding by. They collide, hard, and his mind scolds himself. You should have known better, her heels clacking loudly on the wooden floor. The first contact is with his knuckles against the softness of her breast, he knowing immediately that it is her breast. Not a glancing brush against her, the impact presses his fist deeply into her yielding softness there, almost a punch. And his hand pushing against her breast, their bodies' momentum bringing their faces together until they are close, close as if starting to kiss. Her eyes are wide at being so startled. He can feel the warmth of her breath, smell her scent. Their faces are close, the briefest brush of her hair on his cheek. All this in an instant and he sees her flashing grimace in pain, but just as quickly it is gone. Instinctively, in an impulse of gallantry he pulls his punch, drops the guide and quickly moves his hands to her waist to steady her body against a fall. She recovers quickly, regains her balance in one small step.

And as suddenly as that they are face on, standing close like nervous teenagers slow dancing, not knowing exactly what to do. A second passes between them and then begins a cascade of apology, each talking over the other.

"I am so sorry. Are you hurt?"

"I am not hurt. I am not at all hurt."

"You're sure?"

"I was not watching where I was walking and I did not give you enough space."

"No, no, no, my fault. Totally."

He notes how his words and hers are different somehow. His, colloquial and easy. But she speaks in full sentences, sentences with grammatical correctness. And her pronunciation, it is precise and careful, formal and also correct.

The overlapping flow of their words ends in the futility of their speaking. Each stops and waits. At last, he chuckles. Her smile is enigmatic, her lips pressed together, her eyes lighting up in inner amusement.

He nods, a cue that she should go first, his gentlemanly act. She raises her shoulders and hunches her head low as if shy.

"I am so sorry. I am afraid that I was not paying attention to how quickly I was walking."

Her accent. European? Her speech is as if she is reading it from a page of an English language textbook. Her measured words catch his attention. The accent, from where? She is a little older than he, perhaps her late thirties.

He suddenly becomes aware that his hands hold her at her waist, a firmness in his grip there, more than a dancer's grasp. He is uncomfortably close, in her personal space. He releases her and steps back, but the warmth of her, her slenderness remains a memory in his hands.

She notices that one of her buttons has slipped loose in their collision. She is embarrassed, blushes hotly. He feels bad for her. She quickly raises her hand to cover her exposed chest and turns sideways from him,. She snakes her hand inside her blouse to adjust her bra where he jostled her. She does this quickly, as if she needs to regain her modesty right away. He watches guiltily, her hand is inside her shirt in her intimate places, a routine movement she would do in front of a mirror every day, but now, here in a public gallery. She tugs on the bra strap jiggling herself back into place. She re-buttons her shirt right to the top, covering up now. Her hand is at her throat covering her flushed skin, as if locking herself within. She turns to face him again.

One last apology each, an awkward moment's silence and they separate to go about their business. As he bends to pick up the dropped gallery guide he watches her stroll away, not striding as before, but slowly, sauntering just a few paces. Hesitation? She stops further down the room looking at a wooden sculpture in a display case.

As he returns to his painting he feels her eyes upon him. There is an irresistible urge to look her way. He fights it for a moment but in the power of her gaze he finally succumbs and looks. Her head is bent low to the carving as if studying its detail, but it's a sham; her eyes are turned his way. She is looking at him askance, looking at his shoes at this instant, strange. He can't help but think that her eyes have travelled the length of his body, stopping just now at his shoes. He smiles inwardly. The size of my feet. As soon as she realizes that he is looking back, her gaze flashes up to his eyes and they connect.

Her eyes are uniquely brown, brown but not dark. A lighter shade, milk chocolate, they show the striking details of her irises. Her eyes have passionate force, holding him in their gaze, having him. As her eyes pierce him, he is astonished at their distinctive beauty.

Their eyes fix upon each other and the moment stops the world. He sees that same smile as before, her lips pressed together as if an inner thought has amused her. Again she stretches her shoulders high, holds her head low as if trying to disappear inside of herself. The posture is endearing to him, a demonstration of her shyness, her reserve.

There is no doubt. He smiles broadly, turns and goes to her.

~

Minutes later they are having a coffee in the café next door to the gallery. He and she, sipping away, savouring the deep flavours, they sit quietly in a corner of the café. She has her back to the wall, looking out into the room so that she can see.

"So what brings you to the gallery?" he asks.

"My work is in the art world," she answers formally, incompletely. He raises his eyebrows, a non-verbal invitation for her to continue. Nothing.

"The art world? What do you do?"

"I own a gallery in Ottawa. I am soon to open another in Montreal. And you? What do you do?"

"I have my own company. Graphic arts. It pays the bills, eh", he says with a grin.

"Ah. You are a commercial artist."

"Yes, but I do my own stuff too, paint, draw a little, just for me. Gifts to friends sometimes," he says.

"Ah! Then you are a practising artist also! Perhaps you will do a show in one of my galleries." Her eyes shine.

He learns that she is Drazena. She wears a fitted linen shirt the colour of butter, a subtle embroidered detail on its collar. The shirt fits her well, stretching perfectly across her breast, not loose, not too tight. She is Croatian, orphaned as a teenager in the war. Now, all that is in the past, the sadness of her losses like early morning dew, renewed in her every day but vanishing in the warming brightness.

Their time together flies, but now it is time to go. Out on the street there is an awkward pause. He wants to kiss her on the cheek, but she seems so formal, so reserved. He extends his hand to shake hers, not wanting to overstep her comfort.

"Thank you. This was so nice."

She apologizes once more. "I am sorry that I knocked into you", but he is glad for it, not sorry. He gazes at her expression wondering about the afternoon and supposing a tomorrow.

"Can I call you, you know, see you again?" he asks clumsily.

She smiles warmly. "I would enjoy that. Yes. Please call me." A phone number is scribbled on a palm.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

~

They are to enjoy a salon concert together, works for flute and piano. Knocking on her apartment door, he hears her striding to the door, watches a flicker of darkness in the peephole and hears the latch rattle open. The door opens a crack, held by the chain, tentatively and safe.

And there she is, but just half of her face, the rest obscured by the partly open door. Her hair is up, but a lock escapes its clip and slips down over her eyes like a veil. To him the movement of her hair is a slow-motion flow, seeing its softness in the movement, a golden halo surrounding her from the lights behind. In his mind she is an image incomplete, not fully revealed, enticing, a mystery to be explored. His eyes try to penetrate through the hair that has fallen over her face, to see through it to her eyes. There, through her hair, their eyes connect and he sees a flicker in hers.

It is her smile. Feelings surge up inside him, so suddenly and powerfully that it startles him. He feels a compulsion to sketch her beauty as he sees it in this fleeting instant, to have this moment, her obscured face, the light, the yielding soft movement of her hair, and through it all the penetrating connection of her eyes. To draw her now would be to have her, to capture her beauty and hold it forever.

~

The concert is in a small meeting hall at the university, seating for perhaps sixty. Entering the hall, he guides her through the door. He catches her scent, subtle, vanilla.

They pause off to the side to choose where they will sit. He notices heads turning her way. She flushes slightly and seems uncomfortable, as if she were embarrassed to be in the spotlight, as if she wants to be unnoticed. He wonders. Can she be self-conscious of her own beauty?

If it were his choice alone, he would sit in the second row, not right up front. She prefers even further back, somewhere with fewer watching eyes behind her. He chooses two chairs in the third last row and follows her into the aisle. As she takes her chair she seems more comfortable, no longer in plain sight of the other patrons. She sits forward in her chair, upright, her face bright, her hands folded in her lap. She seems excited, her eyes lit up and her lips pressed together in her unique smile.

"It is wonderful to be here," she says. "I am glad that you were able to get the concert tickets, and that you have chosen to invite me." She has emphasized the 'me', as if he had a wide choice, so many alternatives. He smiles, her words are spoken so strangely, as if read from dialog written in another era, a time of social graces and civility, all of it coloured with her accent.

"My pleasure," he says, and it is the truth. There is something about her, her regal bearing, her quiet charisma. It charms him, endears her to him.

And yet, there is a distance between them, a gulf of language and culture to be sure, but not only that. He sees her as if she is a subject, someone to be observed and to feel awed by. She has become perfection to him, an overpowering ideal. He feels her fragile beauty as an ache, a longing for an unattainable ideal.

But despite his feelings, she is here sitting beside him. She relaxes in the chair and crosses one leg over the other. Again the artist's pang seizes him. He wishes he had his sketchbook, wants to render her beauty, to capture it into permanence. He sees her face in profile, her fine features, brown eyes with long lashes. Her hair is clipped up so femininely, her long neck and delicate collarbones. The fit of her dress on her body, elegant, slimming, her hips and thighs. Her hands are folded on her lap so beautifully, her long fingers, nails that are natural and manicured perfectly. The hem of her dress at her knees, the sweeping curve of her calves, her heels.

The room darkens somewhat and a spotlight appears at the piano. The concert is to begin.

~

Leaving the building after the concert, out on the street they hold hands. She is the one who has taken his hand in hers. He feels her thumb caress the skin of his hand with a single tender stroke. Time stops. Her thumb has caressed him, such a tiny gesture, but her outward expression of so much from one who seems a universe away from him. Her touch affirms her comfort that he is there with her, that they are not strangers to each other. Her small caress, a touch, a whisper of an embrace, wordlessly. Her manner of speech is so formal, so distant, and now she has expressed the first real intimacy. Two independent lives, souls apart, and now they are joined by this small physical sign. He squeezes her hand in response.

~

Outside the entrance to her building it is time to say goodnight. He does not expect to be invited up, not on their first real date, and what with her sense of propriety.

The hold both hands standing apart from each other. She looks up into his face with bright, brown eyes.

"It was a wonderful evening tonight."

"For me too."

"I hope that I am not being too forward." She pauses. "I should like to see you again, that is, if you would also."

"Yes, yes. I'd like that very much."

"Then you will call me?"

"Yes, of course."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

She lifts herself to tiptoes and kisses him lightly on the lips. Her shoulders lift in her lovely way, her lips pressed into a smile. She turns from him and walks into the building's lobby. He watches as she presses the button for the elevator. Once she is in the elevator she turns again to face him, and as the doors close, she blows him a kiss. Another smile and the doors close.

He knows that he will think about her for days, that he will form an obsession about her. He pictures her beauty this evening in his mind and begins to imagine their next time together, and the next and the next.

There is something different about her, he realizes. As his imagination rolls out their future, she remains almost untouchable to him. He feels powerful, almost overwhelming attraction to her, and yet his mind stops short of imagining the ultimate intimacy with her.

She has become a goddess.

~

He asks her to take him to a good Croatian restaurant.

Hesitating, she asks, "May I be honest?"

"Of course."

A tiny muscle above her brow tenses, carving a shallow furrow, and he knows right away that he has made a mistake.

"I have a lot of...," and her voice breaks and then trails off.

He tries to jump in, holding up his hand to stop her.

"No. I'm sorry. Please don't...," he interrupts, but by then it is too late and she has struggled to resume.

"...memories...Too many..."

His head roars with remorse. "Idiot! Idiot! My comfortable life here, my easy life, advantages that I take for granted. How could I forget her past?" he thinks and suddenly she s in his arms, her face buried in his neck, her fists at her mouth. He feels her shuddering breath as she sobs.

"I'm sorry. Drazena. I'm sorry," but of course words are not enough.

Holding her close, protecting her, he can feel that her reserve, the separateness that he had felt with her has dissolved away in an instant. He begins to sway, to rock her slowly, his way of holding the rest of the world at bay while she can take her own time to suffer.

To hold her like this, to have her seek comfort in his arms after such an awful, unthinking mistake, is overwhelming. This was an intimacy like no other they have experienced together. He feels the warm wash of affection for her flood through him.

At long last she turns her head as if she is ready to face the hard world again. He feels her arms move to his back. She grasps him to her, holds him tightly as if she cannot be alone and apart. Suddenly, what had been a protective clutch for her and for him, is overwhelmingly mutual, the intimate embrace of two souls.

He feels her arms slacken. Fatigue? Something else? First her eyes seek out his, and then their lips are joined. He feels her softness, her lips so open to him, the light touch of her tongue to his, but most of all, he feels himself melt into her.

~

She cooks a meal for him in her apartment. It is a seafood dish, grilled scampi in tomato and garlic sauce.

Without looking up from the simmering sauce she says, "They enjoy this in my country." They, not we. She continues, "They call it 'Skampi na Buzaru.'"

He daren't pursue the topic, and tries to move the conversation to another subject altogether. Looking at her, he sees tension come out of her shoulders, as if she is grateful that he has not led her further back into her nightmarish past.

She is beautiful, wearing her apron and with the sleeves of her shirt rolled up. Even dressed casually, she looks elegant.

"What is it about her," he wonders. She moves about the kitchen and he cannot take his eyes off her. "Everyone moves," he thinks, "but not like she does." It comes to him: a dancer on the stage walks, and she can make it beautiful.

He realizes that he is staring, enjoying the fine gold chain at her throat and on her wrist, just as she looks up and smiles at him.

"You are so beautiful," he says and immediately feels embarrassed by such sophomoric compliment. But then he realizes that this is nothing more than the simple truth, and he needs her to know it.

Her eyes sparkle at his compliment. In the concert hall she had been self-conscious, but here, with him, because it is said by him, she smiles warmly.

"Thank you." Then, "You are very kind." Her shoulders rise in her unique smiling posture.

Across the dining table from each other the conversation and the laughter come easily. She amazes him in every way, her knowledge and intelligence, the insights that she shares. She talks freely at last about her adult life, her time at university, her travels and her love of art. He could listen to her forever.

And to watch as she eats is a sensual pleasure. Her fork rises to her mouth and her lips envelope the food, closing on it softly. She wets her lips, and he wants to go to her and kiss those lips, to feel their yielding softness. A sense of anticipation begins to grow in him, a stirring.

After eating, they clean up together. At long last, she gives the kitchen sink a final rinse and he folds the dishtowel.

Now. He wants to hold her and kiss her. He takes her into his arms and presses himself to her. They kiss, deeply and tenderly and he can feel his arousal begin to stir.

He pulls away from the kiss, looks deeply into her eyes searching, looking for her consent. But her eyes are inscrutable. He guides her out of the kitchen into the living room and then, toward her bedroom.

But he feels her hesitation through his hand at the curve of her back. No. They stand there, not moving.

"I am sorry," she says, and that is all it takes.

"No. No. I'm sorry. I apologize," he says, and for a moment there is awkward silence. He feels disappointment, but more than that, a powerful urge to respect her decision, to wait for her.

She breaks away from him, goes to the kitchen and pours more wine.

~

It is a week later. In the bedroom of his apartment, her words, so shocking just now, hang in the air. They are words of a different person altogether and yet she, Drazena, said them out loud.