by Charley Moon
(01/30/08)

"Excuse me, could you just hold my kite for me?”

She opened her sun-warmed eyelids and frowned in confusion. She sat up, exposing her lawn-damp back to the warmth of the afternoon.

He was standing, kite string in one hand and brief case in the other.

“Please? I won’t be a moment.” The man begged.

He flashed a smile that lit up his blue green eyes and pressed a dimple into his left cheek. His hair was dishevelled fashionably and his suit well-cut, but his feet were bare.

Without thinking about it she lifted her hand to accept the string, which had a stick tied to the end.

He jogged off in the direction of the main gate. She watched him until the tug of the kite drew her attention. The gentle dance it wove in the sky captured her.

“Thanks so much.” His voice drew her back, not unpleasantly.

He had a bag of fairy floss in his hand.

She vaguely wondered if she was actually suffering sun stroke and dreaming this.

He noticed her slight reluctance to give him the string back.

“It’s nice, isn’t it? Like fishing in the sky. I wonder what one would catch with such a bright lure?” His voice was dreamy as they both watched the kite dip in the afternoon breeze.

Tucking the bag of fairy floss under his arm he reached over and gently took back the stick.

She felt a sense of loss and he must have seen it in her eyes.

Leaning forward, he let his lips brush hers. She responded, much to her surprise, and they kissed softly.

He tasted like chocolate and that wasn’t her overly romantic mind playing tricks, he honestly tasted like chocolate. His tongue flickered across hers lightly, making her stomach flutter in ways it hadn’t since her first kiss as a teenager. That was a great many years ago, a great many kisses ago, and back when she thought a kiss was an expression of love, not a strategic move.

Her eyes had drifted closed as she found her body sort of melting, Dali like, towards him. When he pulled back she felt an even keener sense of loss than she had had when he took back his kite.

“Rainbow trout.” Her voice surprised her as she spoke to him for the first time.

A small frown of confusion travelled over his face and then he nodded with sincerity.

“Yes. I’ve seen schools of them when it rains and then the sun comes out and catches their gorgeous scales. People think rainbows are a weather phenomenon but you and I know they are the trout leaping.”

A smile had settled on his face like an old friend, and she felt about twelve again, rediscovering the beauty of an honest human.

The traffic sound from the streets outside of the park suddenly seemed to resemble background surf as they both sat on the grass.

Opening his fairy floss he offered it to her. The adult part of her was about to turn him down, but the newly rediscovered child in her reached out and pinched a wad off. It melted onto her tongue, filling her mouth with its soft, sugary perfume.

He pinched some off and stuck his tongue out flat like a lizard. Placing the floss on his tongue, he went cross-eyed to try and see how long it would take to melt.

She mistook the first laugh that bubbled out of her mouth as a hiccup, it had been so long since she had laughed, but those that followed filled her with lightness. The genuinely funny sight of him cross-eyed and with a pink tongue unravelled her turban heart, trailing red ribbons of joy throughout her.

Stabbing the stick that held the kite string firmly into the ground, he put down the bag of floss and his briefcase.

“What do you see when you look at me?” He asked suddenly. His manner wasn’t desperate or serious; it was more of a lazy wondering. His eyes sparkled with mirth as she thought for a moment.

“A boy. Peter Pan. An adventure.” She felt her cheeks heat up with a small flush as he grinned openly.

“Really? How enchanting. I’m going to receive those comments as compliments.” He plucked some more floss from the bag and sucked on his pink fingers, eyes watching the kite meandering.

“What do you see when you look at me?” She found herself honestly wondering. Usually she spent her days, like the rest of the population, trying to not be seen, trying to seem the same.

“You remind me of my dog.” He responded promptly. A shock of offence stung through her chest and she frowned. He caught her look and started shaking his head with a small smile.

“No I don’t mean you are a dog. I mean you are like my dog. She is the most laid back friend I have. She gets so excited to do just about anything, but if nothing is doing she is quite happy to just be.” He was sucking more floss off his fingers as she smiled and felt the sting disappear.

“Thanks.” She fiddled with the fringe on the edge of her blanket, aware that he smelled of sun-dried laundry and that this made her want to bury her face in him.

“She can say ‘peace’ in seven languages you know,” he murmured, leaning back on his hands to gaze back up at the kite.

Frowning again, she tried to imagine what sort of academic this dog was, speaking many languages.

“Animals can speak any language they want. There are no Australian dogs or French dogs, there are just dogs. They all communicate universally.” He turned to fix her with that eager gaze.

Understanding his line of thought required her to un-lose her logic mind, which was difficult, as the knots that stayed it were aged and awkward to undo.

They gazed at each other evenly as if they hadn’t quite noticed one another until that point.

“You kissed me,” she blurted, feeling perhaps she should gain some explanation for his actions.

“You wanted me to,” he responded immediately.

She opened her mouth to object but found that her heart told her it was true. He smiled and reached across to run his knuckles down her cheek.

“It was meant to be a thimble,” he murmured, and she caught sight of his tongue, pink from the floss.

“Hm?” was all she could manage, as the sensation of his fingertips tracing her jaw made her mind collect in a warm puddle at the base of her spine.

“You said I was Peter Pan. He didn’t kiss Wendy, she gave him a thimble,” he explained, moving close to her. She could now smell the sugar on his breath and imagined that her trembling made her look like a water mirage on a hot, summer road.

“Oh yes,” she managed vaguely as his fingers traced the tendons in her neck and along her collar bone.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, close to her mouth, hot and sweet.

“Okay,” she whispered back, and allowed her eyelids to drop, the sun sitting heavily on them.

The warm fingertips did not delve beneath her clothes as she had expected, rather they danced across the top of them. Tracing her now hard nipples through the material of her bra and shirt he managed, somehow, to make her feel safe and sensual simultaneously.

With her eyes closed she became acutely aware of every inch of her skin and what it could feel. The dozy sun warmed her to the core, whilst his ever dancing fingertips fluttered on her thighs, making her groin twitch in pleasant shock. Although her hands were free to move if she wanted to grab him, she felt pinned beneath her own languid pulse.

The gentle fingers were under her skirt now, drizzling across her upper thighs in waltzing circles. She smelt the sharply earthy smell of her own arousal mixing with the scent of the damp grass. Her mouth watered, mirroring the moistening of other parts of her body, and she silently willed him to touch her where she now felt an ache so good it was almost enough to satisfy her.

As his fingers brushed the leg elastic on her panties, she took a sharp little breath and then sighed softly as they danced away again, teasing her.

Her whole body tensed, keening, as he finally started flickering his touch across her panties. He again remained on the outside of the material and touched her so lightly she was left torn between moving to press him closer and shuddering to the ground.

He circled lightly over her clitoris and she jerked, her eyelids flickering as she cried out softly. She managed no words but spoke a thousand to him in that single cry.

As if he were tuning a guitar, he set a tempo of slight plucking, pulling her entire body taunt. She could feel the blissful hum of The Perfect Note building up in her.

One moment she was mentally scrabbling at something out of reach and the next her nervous system sung in beautiful harmony. A crescendo of pleasure wavering through her, inspiring the intimate whimper she shivered out.

It was a moment before the roar of blood in her ears dropped to a soft glowing pulse beat and she realised he was no longer touching her.

When she opened her eyes he was walking away, fairy floss under one arm, kite tugging after him like a distracted dog.

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