"Would you walk with me a while?"
I had just met him yesterday, a happenstance conversation on a day the sun was bright and birdsong abounded, twittering an ecstatic welcome to spring. He was tall; "The Cowboy" I called him, often seeing him on his morning rounds of the neighborhood where I work.
I knew he had worked on a farm once, with his hands. They were square and long-fingered, fleshy in the way that some big men have. The skin of his palm was smooth and hard, worn – but warm, almost fiery, causing mine to sweat as he enveloped it in the paw of his own.
Who holds hands today? A sweetness of yesterday, invoking images of innocence and trust, seen rarely these days. Ridiculous feelings, I know – he could be an axe murderer. The thought flitted from my mind as fast as it had entered. Sometimes, one just knows. Or doesn't, but spontaneity had overtaken any misgivings I had. I skipped along beside his long-legged stride, feeling lighthearted.
Yesterday's parting salute, a kiss on the forehead, still burned on my brow.
As we walked, he talked. Of his days on the prairie, his move to the city, how the bustle and noise here made one far lonelier than the bleakest windswept day back East, for there were always things to be done, and a good woman waiting for him to warm him with supper, and to lay her head in his lap at the end of the day.
He stopped abruptly in front of a brightly coloured house, rescued from disintegration by the mostly-industrial area's gentrification. "Your hair is the same colour as hers used to be." There was a tiny lawn, surrounded by the inevitable white pickets, and meticulously kept yellow roses framed the door of the brick-red apartment home. He passed the hand holding mine behind my back and pulled me into the circle of his arms. My back thumped against the solid wall of his chest, and I could smell him.
Laundry soap and shaving cream, leather and faint musk. The simple, honest smells of an uncomplicated man. But his heart thumped in his chest, and I felt mine redouble its pace, I felt his need. For what I wasn't sure, but his scent was a reassuring as the gentle sure grip of his hand. Ludicrous as the act of going with a complete stranger, I knew I would give this man what he wanted, and gladly.
He pushed the gate open in front of us and ushered me in. A guiding hand in the small of my back – another touch of days gone by. Each touch a gentling, a warming. "My home. Would you –" he started, and swept off his hat. "I'm Jim." I turned to him and looked up, way up into his faded blue eyes. I felt charmed, even beguiled, but searching his face revealed only kindness, and faint trace of sorrow. His face was leathery, careworn and not pretty; handsome in the way of a man of another time. My answer was just as short as his introduction, and breathless. "Michele."
"Yes, of course it is," he said quietly. He gathered me to him in a tight hug, one hand buried in my hair, the other curled snugly around the curve of my bottom. He bent his head to mine and breathed in deeply. "You smell so good, Shell." His tone was tender; the words familiar, like he'd said them many times before. He rubbed his cheek on the top of my head. "So soft, such pretty hair," he murmured. The sounds of the city faded away in his embrace.
He released me, but I felt his reluctance. He took my hand again and led me around the side of his home. The back yard was just as tiny as the front, but quieter, surrounded by a tall cedar hedge. A small fountain burbled from a stone birdbath. Beside it, a wooden birdfeeder sat gaily on a wooden post. In the back corner, there was an old fashioned swing with a deep seat filled with cushions. A small ginger cat sat on the end of the seat, asleep.
