Beauty and the Mustache (Knitting in the City #4)(67)
Author: Penny Reid

“We’ve been together, what? Almost a year now? And I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve read your poetry to me out loud. Besides, you’re giving me that look.”

“What look?”

“Like I’m cake, so I know it’s a good one.” Her eyebrows move up and down.

I continue to smile, but I say nothing.

Words are clumsy things. Raw, wild, hunger, need, desperation, fascination do not adequately define how I long for her complete capitulation. I want her to weep. I want to quietly tear her apart and lovingly watch her bleed. I crave knowing that I can inspire one tenth of the torment she inspires in me. How can I speak such things out loud?

I need her.

Her surrender, mine to possess and exploit. This ambition remains intangible because, though I feel it, I do not wish it. I communicate this greed only through poetry, and poetry serves as an imperfect allegory.

Ashley huffs. Her eyes narrow. I know the workings of her mind; she is contemplating trickery. She sets her eReader to the floor and comes to me on her knees, her arms around my neck, her breasts pressing against my shoulder. I lament the invention of clothes.

“Drew, if you won’t read to me, maybe you’ll sing for me?” Her lips are close to mine and I need to taste her.

I shake my head, keeping my words soft so as not to betray the ferocity of my need. “No, Sugar. Not tonight.”

“Are you going to the jam session with me tomorrow? Cletus is back in town, and I’m bringing coleslaw for the twins.”

“Yes. We should go.” I’m coming out of the tunnel and speaking, communicating is less cumbersome.

“And you will sing for me then?”

“Yes, if you’ll sing with me.”

“It’s a deal.” She seals it with a kiss and I don’t let her go. I take her sweet mouth until I feel her grow restless. I close my book and turn away from it. I remove the veil of her clothes and I settle for being the implement by which she loses control.

I would never hurt her, not through action, deed, or word. I long to soothe her, pet her, hold her fears, burden her sorrows, be the instrument of her ecstasy. I am her safe place and she is mine.

I need her.

Being the method of her madness fuels me. I watch her pant, feeling her uncontainable hot breath spill against my skin, and it is like water to the thick weeds that tangle and choke my ignoble instincts.

I should not always like to write poetry. I should like to live it.

But if I could pick and choose the poems I live, I would not always be joy, nor would I want inert contentment. Sorrow and struggle bring gravity to the soul and to the mind, a gravity that cannot be achieved through mere happiness. We are most awake to the world and to our own longings and desires when we suffer.

Ashley stretches, arching her back, and the lithe movement demonstrates how powerless my body is to the promise of her body, and with it, the promise of pleasure, of vulnerability, of communal closeness. Her hands are above her head, and her obsidian hair tangles with pale arms. I hold her wrists.

If sorrow as a force is gravity, and mere happiness is inertia, then love and being in love is momentum. A force built upon actions of the past, moving us.

We move.

I see her. She is beneath me. Her body is slick, yielding softness, sweetness replete. I want to worship, yet need to possess. I suffer because she is forever anticipation, even when I hold her, fill her, taste her, dominate her, consume her.

I need her.

~The End~