Last Christmas

by Milarca C. Kruse

As we began to talk about literature and art and life I could feel a little thread of golden lust spooling around us.

I saw your long, wiry frame leaning against the rail by the clock tower of Crouch's End and felt the tingle of the upcoming seduction.

Your sweet blushed skin and strawberry blonde hair and intelligent eyes a promise of the wonders to come.

We walked back to my sister's apartment in the moist London air on a quiet Christmas afternoon.

We sat at the kitchen table, two complete strangers a day ago.

As the Spumanti climbed into our heads so did the promises, and the expectations and the excitement.

We talked and cooked and ate and then you kissed me. A delicious stocking stuffer for what would have been a very lonely day without you.

As I changed dresses for you, you got down on your knee and asked me to marry you.

For that moment I loved you. It was better than a Tiffany's gem or a Versace frock.

As we proceeded engorged with passion to the warm, dark bedroom we became a tangle of contrasts and limbs and life experiences. You, trying to leave your past behind, me, trying to build a promising future.

And I felt safe and secure and happy as I was covered by your body.

We explored and tasted and dealt with the newness of the anatomical challenges of our two diametrically opposite bodies.

You, a straight line, me, an exercise in sinuosity.

We fell asleep side by side for a wonderful night full of dreams and romance and possibilities.

One brief fairy tale of a Christmas day.

The next morning you left with apprehension on your brow.

I knew that as any other pumpkin-turned-coach or frog-turned-prince this was a sweet Christmas mirage brought about by champagne bubbles and two lonely souls blown together by the London wind.

I saw you at the pub and we both agreed on that after rationality finally got the best of us.

And yet on my hand shines a well-worn silver ring and every time I look at it I feel like I should cry.

Copyright © Milarca C. Kruse 2003