The Walk up the Stairs

The sky became a midnight-blue as thunder slowly closed in, and with it a trickle of moisture, a common occurrence on those hot, Chicago nights in early July. Their heads swelled of events not yet realized as they made their way to his flat.Short of the entrance, he fumbled for keys, and grabbed them assuredly as he felt his heart increase it s rhythm. He glanced in her direction quickly, and then away, and then slowly towards her eyes. She met his gaze, and he understood its meaning, as rain began to pelt the concrete softly around them.

He placed his hand on the small of her back, bare from her midriff top, and when he did this, she felt as one with the charged ions of the atmosphere, and instantly an energy surged from that point of contact through her arteries to her veins, branching upwards towards her head, awakening senses and sweat glands and stimulating follicles and nerve endings to ultra-awareness.

As they slowly climbed up the narrow staircase towards his loft, she eyed the old wooden walls of the building, and wondered what stories they might tell were they allowed the opportunity to speak. He was close behind her, and each step they climbed, the air became warmer and increased in humidity, and she could feel her skin begin to glisten with sweat, and her breath become more defined. She brought her hand across her brow and paused at the entrance to his apartment – an old wooden door, painted with cracks,and bathed only in moonlight from the blinded window, and situated at the attic level of the flat.

He was completely behind her, and she felt his hand brush gently and purposefully against her hip as he reached forward and pressed the key into the lock to slowly turn it, and as he did this she felt him press lightly against her, his hot breath on her neck. His hands withdrew from the lock and grabbed her waist, and slowly they began to dance as her figure-eight movement with her hips and abdomen was met by his.

She turned to meet those eyes, and felt herself pressed against the door. As he freed her skirt from her contours, she took notice of the horizontal patterns the venetian blinds provided against their flesh – how they bent and took the shape of their bodies. As she wrapped herself around him, she began to tell a story the walls could remember, recorded by the type of muffled sounds of raindrops falling on the rooftop, culminating in a lightning flash as a captured moment on film.

2002