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 Nantucket by Edie edie@gmx.us

   There's a boy perched on the arm of a couch, strumming on a banjo.  The
couch is in a beach house, perched on the arm of Cape Cod.  And in that
beach house, I am sitting across from him, curled up in a rocking chair, a
pale ale in my hand and my feet still salty from the warm waters of the
Nantucket sound.  There's a party around us, fueled by young twenty
somethings and a fridge of beer, but all I see is this boy, his straight
straggly hair framing his face, and his eyes, closed, lost in the harmony
the impromptu band has created.  Someone's made a percussion instrument out
of an empty Sierra Nevada case and there's a semi-sober fool tooting a
cheap flute, but the group's giving bluegrass masters a run for their
money. His hair is dancing up and down to the tapping of his right foot,
and the room starts to dance up and down to the tapping of his right foot.
A warm heady burst of attraction dampens my vision, and all I can feel is
him, his fingers, and the furious music they channel.

   An hour later, the instruments have been put away, but the party's still
going strong; Ace of Base blasting from speakers, and a long couch shoved
off to a side to make way for a dance floor.  In the kitchen, I'm leaning
against a counter, laughing at a joke that's probably not so clever sober.
A hand slips around my waist, and I turn to see the boy, holding onto the
thin of my sweater.  He nods towards the music blaring from the living
room.

   "Dance with me?"

   That little question mark at the end of the sentence, that little
upwards lilt that makes a grammatical command a pragmatical plead; it's
that little nervous tic that makes a girl's heart melt.  So I glance at
him, lopsided smile on my lips, and holding his hand in mine, I follow him
to the living room.  Soon we're willing mortality away with the rest of the
crowd.  My body is pressed against his; the small of my waist against his
solid trunk.  And drifting in my nose is him; woodsy, comforting, hormonal
sweat and cologne.  Inebriating.

   We leave the party together, the boy and I; sneaking out the back door
during a break in the music.  The stars, not outshone by the blinding cover
of a city, glaze the black sky with bright specks and dim mists of galaxies
far away.  I can't see his face in the stillness of the night, but his hand
in mine is solid, warm, and pulsing.  We didn't make it very far before
more than our hands intertwined.  My arm around his shoulders, his around
my waist, we kiss, deeply, hungrily.

   Gasp of breath, hitting the chilly air above.  His fingers, my lips, his
tongue, my legs, our bodies seek each other out, as we sink down to the
damp sand.  We're desperately trying to become one, tearing underneath
clothing, underneath armor.  He pushes me down, presses me between his warm
body and the impartial packed sand.  As he sinks into me, I close my eyes,
see the nocturnal map of Nantucket etched into my eyelids, feel the depth
of him etched into my center, and all that exists in the world is him, me,
and the Atlantic Ocean.