8/4/2019 The Parable of the Lovers
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The Parable of the LoversbyPeter [email protected]
They held each other as the walls of their small house were
assaulted by the winds and rain and general furiousness of a
hurricane. They were naked, young, and,
if not quite beautiful, had a health and vitality to their
bodies that made them, if indeed they were to be observed at a
moment like this, quite glorious. They had recently made love
loudly and with a passion that was surprising even to them. It must
be the storm, they thought, licking sweat from each others bodies
and tasting the future of their lives together. Now, they lay in
the bed, the wine-red comforter thrown to the floor, the gray
sheets tangled near their feet. It
was as if they needed to be naked and exposed to this moment,
this storm, eachother. The wind howled and beat at the windows.
Branches, plucked from the weaker trees like so many insect legs
pulled off by cruel children, struck the sidesof the house, the
roof as well, and threatened, if not directly at least by
implication of their very being, the welfare of the windows, even
with the large x of tape that crisscrossed each pane of glass.
He lay on his back, on the right side of the bed, his right arm
tucked back andunder his head, his left under her head and curled
up, so he could stroke her hair. His naked body was not
particularly strong, muscles not particularly defined, but the
thick shock of black hair on his head, the sensual lips, and flat
belly gave an overall impression of strength. His eyes were
slightly too close, andhis chin was a bit weak, but these only
slightly marred his attractiveness and were more than made up for
by the shining intelligence in this brown, too close eyes. His toes
were, to be honest, more delicate than usual on a man, and he
took
a strange pride in this aspect of his body, while at the same
time finding suchpride vaguely distasteful. He had yet to tell her
about this particular constel
lation of feelings.
She curled against his left side, head on his moderately hairy
chest, left arm reaching across his body. She was almost as tall as
he, with long, auburn hair that nearly always threatened to go wild
and tangled, like it was constantly faced
with the gale force winds, no matter how much product she used
or how often shebrushed it. After reading the works of the Bronte
sisters, she had decided, at
the age of fifteen, to refer to her hair as "the tangled heath",
which she rarely did in front of anyone nowadays, though she had
told him this fact after their
third time making love and he would sometimes come up behind her
in the bathroom in the morning and embrace her and bury his head in
her hair and breathe deeply and murmur, my tangled heath, my
tangled heath, always saying it twice and always in a low voice
that made her shiver and want him deeply inside of her. She had
gray eyes, flecked with green. Her skin was pale, and her body
sensual: heavy
breasts with very pink aureolas, a belly that, while far from
fat, was not slender in the least, and thick thighs on long
legs.
Sweat and semen cooled, then dried as the storm raged outside.
They felt languorous after their lovemaking, lazy. Yet, the winds
and the fury outside could nothelp but make them a little afraid as
the power of nature is wont to do when itunleashes itself upon the
flimsy constructs of out lives. And this fear, as fear
is wont to do, kept the spark of hunger for each other and for
the acts of sexburning like an ember in their bellies. But for the
moment, they were content to
lie together, in silence, she listening to his heartbeat that
was, she thought,probably a bit too fast for a resting heartbeat,
and he stroking her forehead a
nd hair as he contemplated telling her how he felt about his
toes.
