act natural 2

The door takes a while to open and when she manages to get through, she finds Richard reading calmly on the couch, and there is a bottle of wine opened and a ruined package of cigarettes almost empty, next to him. There are only a few smokes left in the pack, and the television is turned off, and the room is clean and spic and span. He must have cleaned she thinks and she tries very hard to be quiet, breathing even slowly, trying to surprise him maybe. The evening feels cool and happy to be home again, and the moon blows a sparing wind, giving fuzz to the carpet. Shine to the wood floor boards picture perfect.

Richard wearily smiles and looks goofy towards her. Belle moves her body and hovers over him, says hello, and kisses him on the cheek where it tickles him the most and she loves doing that. His face often turns very singular and noble with his eyes closed when she kisses him right there, like he is getting knighted or something.

The blood in his head almost centers itself at one decided, loved location, underneath her lips, on his cheek. She thinks all boys must dream of such grandeur of kingdom and great modern damsels, where the kiss is the only reward. When they do, they can sink so deeply into this keen, behavioral chivalry and they don‘t even tell their lovers, because she assumes it’s more fun that way, like a secret they all share with very close male friends. A covenant even, replacing God with the happiness and the praise of women and affection. Brothers being ridiculous and fun, honorable. Godless.

No one but me knows how soft his cheeks are she thinks.

Richard rises and says, I’ve made dinner. Its in the kitchen.

Belle says oh yeah? She turns around and unravels an image of a whole suckling pig already roasted on the counter, resting on a metal tray and aluminum foil, and lie the smells of salt and oils. There is an apple in his mouth and his eyes as baked as bread, looking very easily to crumble and delicious too. There seems to be no side dishes to go with the meat and she asks, you made a whole pig?

I know right? I guess I got tired of vegetables too he says.

He seems to be already chewing something and looking very exhausted and worn out, placing his book down on the cushions. Richard takes a long drag from a thin joint. And light bulb goes his eyes, he gets up almost habitually towards the food and Belle watches him hurry off. He swings his hips into the kitchen to fetch a couple of clean plates and utensils, and Belle stares at his departing shoulder blades, shimmy shimmy shaking, steadily in rhythm like from the old days of jazz and spontaneous foxtrot. There is almost a spotlight beaming on him when he changes his mood like this and gets into new character. The light carries dust.

He is performing for her. He is trying to make her laugh. Those eyes he has, maneuver intentions to woo her out of her shell and make her float there in the living room via laughing. Richard pumps his fists in the air and mimes doing pull ups like a new way to dance, and his head pops up and down, eyes like Chaplin.

Because it all means he is paying attention to her and he sways like one giant muscle, smiling.

Women too are dazzled by bodies. Belle chews her lower lip like the skin of an apple she is saving for later or hoping to have. Shadows repeat in the living room because of the headlights, of the traffic flow. Belle wonders how the light gets all the way up here, near the seventh story so high up and she sneaks the joint she sees from the dining room table and the smell almost speaks to her out loud like: Long day?

She takes a hit. The weed pulls her mind to the back of her head and she feels slowness. The windows are cool and perfectly see through. Belle exhales like how people should be exhaling, watching her own breath travel to the ceiling and feeling so good to be stationary. Her eyes feel at home. She theorizes the size of the room and how lovely it feels to be walking around barefoot, closer to him. The kitchen dims in gloss and she doesn’t know what she is really thinking or if it makes sense but whatever, life is seamless. Belle leans her chin on Richard’s neck and says, I think that’s why your pupils get so big when you‘re high. Because you’re trying to see everything.

What?  Richard asks, grinning and admiring her. Man you’re really stoned he says.

Shut up, Belle says and she kisses him. Tries to communicate solely with her lips and she tip toes. The massage from her tongue makes Richard feel like an anchor, slowly reeling towards a low depth, and she guides him towards the closest piece of furniture he can sit in, which happens to be the leather love seat in the center of the living room. Refusing to let go of the kiss or opening their eyes, they move like people blindfolded willingly. Richard bumps his knee against the coffee table and the sound of his pain like a sudden balloon popping, causes a smile on Belle’s face and she sucks his lower lip rather in a little harder. As if to say, it’s totally worth it, do not worry about your knee.

She straddles over his waist and moves like she has many brains, accounting for every ounce of her one hundred and fifteen pounds, collectively getting very warm and swarming him. Her lower thighs remember his shape and hold him there and push him like a domino, and Belle amazes herself when she rolls down the slope of being very horny. She continues to follow through. Moving somehow irreversibly, she turns a sexual being and keeps falling.

She enjoys these transformations and thinks birds do the same thing when flying.

But he says wait. Hold on.

Richard gently sways Belle from their union and become two people again. His hands pushes her shoulders away until he can see her face again, out from the blur and into warm blood focus. The way he is being delicate makes her feel apprehensive and eerie. Strangely rejected and misunderstood and there is a look in his eye that slows her down a bit, because he seems prepared to say something heavy. A solid brown color in his eyes like he has been rehearsing and pacing back and forth at home forever before she came back. She knows he never says, I have something to tell you. Richard always skips that part.

I did something honest today, he says. Thom and I did.

She moves her hair back and her body winds down the hot knot it previously gathers, and she shakes her head grudgingly. She looks around again at the clean house and imagines his anxiousness, trying to calm itself through chores and cooking. Out of her head, Belle bursts into the present, feeling weary but sober again, and she washes her face with her hands. The vagueness in his voice scares the idea of loss in her.

What are you talking about? She asks.

The man that touched you.

I pushed him off a building, and Richard shrugs his shoulders and stares at her.

I don’t know how to say that beautifully, he says.