Hook, Line and Sinker

image adapted from: http://annagrl530.deviantart.com/art/Slow-Dancing-in-a-Burning-Room-150697762

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The first time I set eyes on you…. eyes that roamed up and down your body – resting on the tongue of blonde hair as it flopped onto your brow – sliding to your own pale blue, intoxicating, intoxicated eyes – slipping quickly from the bridge of your nose to those quizzical lips – descending your neck – strolling across your shoulders – silently caressing your chest and the hollow in your stomach until they reached your belt ….as you looked up at the monument in the town centre, and accepted your companion’s dare, I was lost.

In your inebriated godliness, you weren’t aware of the assault, having been carried out from a distance of at least twelve feet. You didn’t even look my way. You didn’t see the stranger in the shadows

But how could you not have noticed me? I had swallowed your features, bite by bite, and I carried them home with me. They were the last thing I saw when I went to sleep that night, and the first thing when I awoke the following morning.

The next weekend I went to a club. I was on the dance floor when I looked up and saw you. Exactly as if you had a radar, you were walking towards me, your eyes looking straight into mine, My vision tunnelled. There was just you, and nothing else but a blur around the edges. Maybe people stepped back to let you past. I felt as if they had. You were a few feet away from me when you stopped and gave me that smile; apologetic, questioning and knowing all at once, as you threw back your shoulders and opened your arms, palms turned outwards towards me. ”I’m yours, do what you will with me,” your body implied.

We danced slowly around each other, not touching for a few minutes, and then I was in your arms, with my head against your chest, and we swayed in time, like twining vines in a soft breeze.

I felt complete, as if there was nobody else in the world, and I had need for nobody but you.

I went home, to think of you…. to re-live every sensation – to feel the cradle of your strong arms around my body – to shiver with head-tingling delight at the memory of the breeze of your breath against my hair – to feel the beat of my heart echoing yours – always – every moment I was away from you… knowing that I had found my heart’s companion, and nothing would ever tear us apart.

Except your wife. I admit, we didn’t talk a lot, being caught up in the moment as we were, but it would have been helpful for you to have mentioned her, at least in passing.

I had puzzled over the apologetic aspect of your smile. Now I understood.

© Jane Paterson Basil

Return to Wild Boar Wood

                               

Wild Boar Wood retained its winter nakedness as it awaited our arrival.

The trees stood skinny and diminished beneath a steel-grey sky, as if sleeping to escape their grief at our late-summer retreat to towns and houses.

The plants under our feet had at least prepared for our return, pushing up green leaves as they waited for the right moment to burst into braggardly bloom.

We pitched a tent and lit a fire, chopped vegetables and cooked food, ate our evening meal in darkness, and after a while retreated to bed to ready ourselves for the next day’s toil.

When I stepped out of the tent and into daylight I knew that the wood had awoken. I felt it cautiously welcome me as each day it filled out a little more, giving me gifts of leaves which unfurled and swelled with youthful grace, hiding patches of the suddenly blue sky and making frilled parasols above my head.

The bluebells began to bloom; a few more each day, until the ground was covered with swathes of a shade close to cobalt, with dots of gold in between, where the yellow archangels fought their way through the unndergrowth. Around the edges of these carpets were early flowering dog violets, much bigger and bolder than their later counterparts, and in the more boggy areas I found Coralroot – a rare plant only to be seen in the South-East of England – lording it over bright coloured celandine and subtle, dark, bugle. Bouquets of Goldilocks buttercups and nosegays of primroses were scattered about the woodland, and I nibbled on the sharp-flavoured leaves of wood sorrel. Those most beautiful of plants, wood anemones were present in abundance.

The brambles were growing fast, and the wild raspberries and redcurrants were preparing for a fat season. All around me birds sang and warbled. Squirrels ran up trees, and startled deer scattered. A grass snake slithered through the forest to escape human intrusion, and a fox hunted for meat to feed her young, which could be heard yapping nearby.

Spring had arrived at Wild Boar Wood.