by Alicia Housman
(04/23/03)

Language is my wound. It is also my anchor, tying me irrevocably to certain points and people, wherever they go, or I go. The first time I heard the words "I love you," for example. The last time my mother told me "I love you." The first time someone told me "You're beautiful."

I ride the bus every evening. I get off at the corner of Howland Street and Elmgrove Avenue. There's a huge fir tree there, and I stand under it and wait. Sometimes he is there already. Sometimes I wait five minutes, or ten, or fifteen. But he always comes. And I wait for him, my breathing shallow, my heart racing, my mind aglow with colors I can't name, colors that don't have a name.

Waiting for him is like swimming through a sunset. It is like weeping in an empty subway car at two in the morning. It is like waiting for water to drip slowly off leaves.

If I didn't show up, I'm not sure what he would do. I have been careful. I think. I have told him very little, but who knows what I have babbled in the throes of his touch? He knows my soul, that's sure, but what does he know about me?

I know nothing about him, except that his body matches mine in the most unbelievable manner. He knows what I want, and what I need, before I do. He knows how to give me everything.

But there is no point to the questions that tag after me every evening -- I will always come. I know that. Once, I forced myself to come to wait for him in the dark of fir tree shadow, shivering with fever and shaking with exhaustion. When he came, he saw that I was ill, and he gave me water to drink and aspirin to swallow and cuddled me in his arms until I stopped trembling, and then he kissed my forehead and sent me home.

But tonight it is warm and breezy, late May at its best, and I wait only a few seconds before his car pulls up. "Good evening," he says, his voice slipping over my skin like fluid air. "Who are you?"

Our time-honored opening. "Isolde," I say.

"Isolde," he repeats, his voice intense. "Good evening, Isolde. Would you care to go for a drive?"

I nod. "Thank you." I climb in the car, and we drive away.

This is not how it should be, I think. We should be climbing ladders of rainbows, swinging from raindrop to raindrop. We should be lying in hammocks of fire that hold us up from the earth. We should dive into the puddles on the asphalt and come out in China.

"Who are you?" I ask.

"Lorenzo," he says.

My name is really Margaret. Maggie. I don't know his name. We are silent until we get to Nelson Park. Shadow covers the car, looping over us, a net of light's absence.

"Well, Isolde?"

He waits a moment, and leans over and kisses me. I never remember how he tastes until the second his mouth is on mine, and I am drunk instantly, my hands clinging to his shoulders and sliding down his back to grasp his waist.

I am swinging high above the ground, saying my name backwards and forwards. I am sitting alone in a rose-garden changing colors. I am flying through God's body and coming out transformed.

"Hello," I whisper against his mouth.

He pulls himself away. "What do you want?" he asks softly.

"I want to live dangerously," I say, not listening to my words, focusing instead on his lower lip. It is as full as a woman's, soft and moist and utterly suckable.

Touching his body is like pomegranate and mango and kiwi juice running through my veins. It is like speaking in transparent letters. It is like pouring soda water over myself and feeling the bubbles on my skin.

"Oh?"

One little syllable, meaning anything he or I want, and my cunt clenches. I gasp.

"No," he says firmly, moving me away from his lips.

"What?"

"No. You look too exhausted to come."

He is teasing. He must be teasing. This is the only time I can ever breathe, except that his touch stops the breath in my chest. Then he smiles.

"You are too exhausted to come. Let's go dancing. Or would you prefer dinner and a movie?" What? This doesn't make any sense.

And then I know. This is a test.

"Baise-moi," I whisper, leaning forward. When all else fails, try French.

"Non," he murmurs. "I will not take orders tonight. Je te baiserai quand je veux. I will kiss you when I want."

"If I asked you?"

"Try it," he says, and it's so dark that I'm not sure, but I think he's smiling.

"Will you kiss me, Lorenzo?" I say, laughing. I know what this is about now. I know what to do, what to say; I know this calm will last only until he touches me again, but for now, I can cling to a shred of self-control.

"With pleasure, my dear Isolde." And his kiss is cold fire. He touches his lips -- oh, those lips, wizard's lips!--to the edge of my jaw and bites my earlobe.

The breeze outside the car hisses, and my moan blends with it perfectly. Cicadas and crickets buzz in the night air; the world vibrates. Apollo strikes the last note and as it fades away, I shudder. I am dead in the water, and he resurrects me. It is like riding a white swan into a black night. It is like playing violin on my hair. It is like being written by Shakespeare.

"I want you." I have never said I love you to him. Nor he to me. But I do. I love him for what he has taught me.

"Et je te veux, ma petite Isolde."

"Lorenzo, kiss me. Please kiss me."

"I have already. You have already asked."

"Bèseme por favor," I say. I am not laughing now. He has captured my control, and I must admit that I have surrendered it gladly.

"Ah, the chink in my armor," he says softly. His lips settle onto my eyelid. The skin trembles as his breath floats by. He doesn't move his lips for a moment, and then slowly draws away, and now I'm sure that he's smiling.

It is like flying on a paper airplane over the Atlantic. It is like falling off Mount Everest and landing in the Mediterranean. It is like swimming with an angel.

"Baciarme ancora." Italian words of desire drift from my lips; I've told him to kiss me again and hope that he does not hear the longing. We are here because of pleasure, not love or lust or friendship. Not even desire, really.

He laughs softly against my mouth. "You are continually surprising me," he says and then follows a language I don't know. Norwegian, perhaps? "Jeg vil ha de." I can only recognize the rhythm of the words. I don't know what they mean. I don't care what they mean. He is speaking them against my mouth, and his lips are slick and smooth, and the vibration from his throat slips into my mouth and twines around my tongue, and I taste the edges of the words.

He is my broomstick. He carries me to a place where dew is a color, orgasm is a taste, and light and language flow through my veins. If he touches me, I will shatter, and I will glow with the light under my skin.

How can he do this to me? What priest of sin and soul is he the acolyte of?

The clitoris was first discovered in medieval witch trials. It's true. They called it a "devil's teat," and the woman they found it on was hanged. It is a devil's teat, it must be, when I am willing to sell my soul for it. But he has touched no skin below my neck and I am amazed, as I always am, at how much I need him.

The tips of his fingers skate over the flesh beneath my jaw, and my lungs seem to collapse. I cannot breathe for pleasure, for desire. I come just from him kissing me. There is an almost-full moon and I imagine that my cry sounds like a werewolf's in the night.

It is like sliding down a cloud and falling into his hands. It is like lying at the bottom of a waterfall. It is like counting, not sheep, but brilliantly-colored flying fish. It is like holding an orange in my hands, an un-rhymeable syllable touching my skin. It is like riding a too-small tricycle, whizzing round and round on hot asphalt. It is like diving into the ocean and not coming out.

Language is my wound. I bleed language until I cannot speak. All that matters is the pleasure we give each other, not how I can explain it. I close my eyes and sink into orgasm.

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