Silver Moon Blood Red Lips

Note: to me this is a romance, unusual, but bear with me, surely love can be eternal.

***

The bright moonlight bleaches colour from everything it touches, all around us is either black shadows or silver highlights. The full moon itself hangs above us in the black sky, full and heavy, as ripe and plump as a perfect peach. As ripe as you were once, my dearest, when you were in your pomp and prime. And I couldn't squeeze you too much or not enough, my sweet.

You were so beautiful, my love. As soon as I clapped eyes on you as you flowed down that fabulous stairway into that suddenly hushed ballroom in your diaphanous gown, I wanted you for my very own. I was never happier when you told me that night that you felt the same and I have been truly yours ever since, and forever more.

Tonight I touch the cold marble of your heart-shaped headstone. The white funerary stone glows in the silvery moonlight. I run my fingertips along the fresh incised lettering signifying the syllables of the name I still worship as a goddess as if you were originally fresh sprung from Jupiter's loins. You made me who I am, my Dear, and I was always your willing adulate. Forever in my heart, I hold you close, as if you were still my dear sweet bride, though that emorable ceremony was a lifetime ago. For me, my dear sweet lady, you will always be an immortal. How can mere Death combat a love that will exist within my aching breast for eternity?

You had so much energy, my dearest love, in the vibrancy of your youth, you were so full of life that an ending appeared to be impossible. You were like a well-head of life, you brought me to life because before you my entity was merely existence. Your lips were full and plump, as crimson as blood, your firm yet yielding flesh fuelling and enriching my utter devotion to your very existence.

You were majestic, compelling, your Eastern European accent exotic, alluring, elevating. Privileged we were, admittedly, your wealth spared us the need for daily toil, as the teeming masses were forced to do. No, we lived only for our pleasures, which you shared with me equally, despite my humble origins. You spotted something in me that stirred a passion in your loins, matching the passion I had instantly formed for you, and you swept down from your lofty perch and brought me into your world, your inner circle, not to be shared and used and discarded as much of your circle did and do, but as an equal, exclusive to you as you became exclusive to me. I know you always made me feel as though I was your equal, my Dearest Wife, but I knew in my heart that I was so far beneath you that I was content ever to be your obedient servant and lover and protector. Thus, I could delightfully exist for an eternity in the glow of your love and respect I know you had for my feelings of love for you.

Oh! How we partied when we were young though, my sweet, every night we danced and made merry, and all night long! After rest we'd feed, drink our fill, and enjoy the nightlife all over again. How I revelled in your sustained effervescence!

How you soared, my Sweetheart! No-one could touch you in your beauty, charm, gracefulness and regality, my Honeypot, so faithful and true. How we loved, how we orgasmed for hours without end, without a care in the world, and if we were out at night somewhere distant from home, we were only mindful of the dawn. We had plenty of room in our lofty castle, so we entertained more often than not so even dawn impinged little upon our lust to entertain and to love each other until we were sated.

The world was your oyster, without a care in the world, sparkling gloriously in the night, crackling with vital energy. You were absolutely spellbinding my love, immortal, incorruptible. While all around us faded like autumn leaves, it seemed we could go on as we were forever.

How could I imagine it would ever end?

I can still hear the echoes of your delightful laughter, though the memories of your passion invigorates me still within, on the outside I am bent and old, hollow and empty. I am nothing without you, my dear. You were my life.

Would that I had departed the first of us, my sweetheart. How I would have given up so many years, surrendered every atom of my vitality, the very essence that sustains me, instead of lingering on in this empty half-existence without the supporting brilliance of your smiles, the light touch of your lips on mine, a prelude to the passion that would overtake you to drive my body to edge of its endurance in our mutual satisfaction.

But you were the one who was called away before me. Your passing sucking out my breath while your life force was drawn painfully out of you. You were the one who embarked first on that long, lingering decline, not I. My curse that I had found too hard to bear was to watch in suffering silence the eclipse of you, my Darling, my inspiration, the very well of my existence, as you faded into nothingness in front of my weeping eyes.

Now my eyes well up with tears again on this cold, clear, moonlit night, at those horrid memories of your hollowed cheeks, your pain-dulled eyes, your wasting torso, those weeping, suppurating sores which I could do little to relieve you of my sweet suffering maiden, your once-vibrant body crumbling to a dried up husk in front of my eyes. Whatever we tried, the inevitable decay could no longer be held at bay.

Helpless, I was, doing my best never seemed quite enough. I tried, my love to sustain you, to hold, and keep and protect you, but still you slipped away from me, fading away like morning mist. The end was a merciful relief for us both, my dear beloved, knowing your pain, which you never felt even an inkling of in your youth, was ended at last. Though my pain at your passing continues to rip me in tatters to my core, I endure in hope eternal that our separation is but a blip in the passage of our everlasting time together.

Now you lie still, Rest in Peace, my darling wife, waiting patiently, timelessly, upon the moment of our resurrection, when we will once again stand together whole and renewed once again as the promise of bliss eternal opens up its possibilities once more before us.

"How much bleedin' further, Guv'nor?" comes the wheedling voice, deep in the fresh-dug hole, his companion next to him wheezing with the unaccustomed sweat of physical work.

The pair had stopped twice already for cigarette breaks. They looked big and strong in the public house from which I persuaded them to follow me, but the young nowadays are lazy, they have little stamina, and no enthusiasm for work. That's why this brace of good for nothings will never amount to anything.

I was once a worker when I was their age, one of the labouring classes, who worked diligently for long hours with little sustenance to maintain me, so I did not grow deep and fat, full of beer and grease. No, I developed long, lean and light muscles, well adapted for constant work when I had to, but still dance light on my feet well enough for a lady of quality to see some potential in me, enough to take a chance at offering me an opportunity to shine before her and earn the devotion which I match without effort.

Well, I may not have shined as well as tonight's moon does, but I did for long enough to stand next to the star you were, my dear, and a shining star you once more will be.

"I can still see your head and shoulders," I reply to the complaining labourer, calmly, measuredly, keeping frustrating contempt out of my dry, croaking voice. Yes, my dear, we are so near, yet still too long I suffer, lo the end be nigh.

"Just another couple of feet to go, gentlemen, that's all. Come on, the jolly pair of you," I encourage brightly, "Dig with gusto, it'll warm up your blood against the chill of this clear moonlit night!"

They mumble so my old ears cannot tell if they confirm or curse, but the spades continue their slow but relentless reduction of the gap between us.

Servants, honestly!

Being so frail and weak in my current condition in which I find myself, I'm forced to rely on the strength of others to do my work for me.

What was it now, that I enticed them with, to leave their cold beers and opened bags of salted potato wafers to join me in this quest? What was the reward I conjured up to whet their avaricious appetites for enrichment? Was it jewels left sealed in the box of a favourite aunt, a beloved sister, daughter or mother?

I forget.

My memory is as weak now as my bodily frame. I am merely a shadow of my former self, the strong lithe body and gentle loving touch that once attracted you to clasp me to your heaving bosom is shaky and uncertain now. None of us are what we were, what we became, or what we'll become at the time of reckoning, of resurrection, hopefully now, in the time of our imminent resurrection.

Servants, you had a name for them once, in your own funny, endearing, inimitable Transylvanian way that you had.

What was it, now, my sweetheart? What did you once call our legion of changing servants? My mind is blank, can you remember?

Ah, yes, I remember, now, as the moon above us is my witness:

"Schnacks!"

The End