Remembrance

The cool air coming in from the open window kept the space beneath the covers all the more warm and inviting yet more so were the arms of another. To lay there and listen to another's heart beating after having slid into the shared warmth beneath the sheets was so intoxicating to her senses, sometimes it gave Amanda cause to wonder how much of this was dream and how much was real.

Dreaming, how much it meant, to draw on the ephemeral world that was just beyond touch, a miasma of warm color ever just within sight, indescribable yet occasionally felt. Felt. Feelings that coursed through one's veins. Do you know what it's like to reach out and touch a dream and hold it to your arms? To feel its kiss blow across your cheek like it meant to say something but was afraid someone else would hear?

Someone else.

It was two in the morning and her lover was asleep. So peaceful. Always so very peaceful really, a sleeper yet somewhere within those eyes she'd found a heart that woke up in her presence. At first a giddy unease, and then a few shared glances. Ever the eyes, Christ, what was it about those eyes? Moon touched pools one could get lost in.

Then there was that afternoon when the snow was falling and that brutal wind was whipping down the street, and through the city while cars, trucks and city buses coursing down the main street made the going rather hard. They'd been planning to wait for the bus, but transit strikes made that hellish and it was so cold. So with probably five to ten minutes or so to wait and a whipping chiller that refused to relent outside they took to a restaurant walk-in area, ostensibly to use the pay phone.

The space in the door way was cramped but it was ample respite from the outside biting wind chill. There was a window that looked out onto the street and with a bit of leaning it was possible to watch for the coming bus down the end of the street. Amanda had dialed the "AUTOBUS" telephone number for the stop and waited while Tara gazed out the window. While waiting for the damned automated voice to get on with the schedule Tara had mentioned she thought she saw the bus coming. It was rather hard to see, what with the low visibility on account of the falling snow what was coming for sure but Amanda tried to pick out the familiar lights of something resembling a bus.

After a few solid seconds she couldn't see anything and mentioned it to Tara. Tara was dead quiet, like her breath had skipped a beat. Amanda's gaze had fallen over Tara's shoulder, and by this point had been leaning forward to make out the outside world while both their breathes had gradually started to steam up the window. For a second it didn't click, and then with a possibly accidental movement, Amanda leaned in. For an instant she caressed her warm cheek against Tara's.

Tara's arm reached back, grasping at Amanda's bright red ski jacket and pulled her closer if such a thing was really possible in the little restaurant doorway. Seconds passed and they just stood that way saying not a word, the wind outside whipping by, people busily going about their way shopping blindly in the stores that littered the thoroughfare.

Moments later a bell sounded and tinkling the way restaurant bells do, a couple of suits carrying several bags of fast food walked out after a bit of shuffling and complaining that Amanda and Tara were blocking the way out. So they jostled about and eventually were left to their own devices, the phone's handset dangling by its cord, dropped in the shuffling. Standing face to face at this point, a slight awkward silence reigned aside from the bus schedule being listed aloud by the fallen phone receiver.

It was hard to remember who had moved first, or if they had both been reeled in by some unseen strand of essence interlocking their bodies. After a few moments their lips had touched, and Amanda held Tara close wishing Tara's eyes had stayed open as their lips grazed across each other, touching, shivering, feeling...

It must have been no more than a few seconds, but something had changed then and there. They traced lips for a few more aching moments before breaking as the sound of the bus outside gave them a start. On the bus ride home, they didn't talk much, but as they rode home in quiet silence Tara's eyes revealed a newfound understanding that warmed Amanda's heart more than any H & R sweater or northern ski lodge fire place could ever hope to. Besides, the bus was busy and it was hard to hold any kind of meaningful conversation on a bus that was full of high school students being noisy and rude.