Making Love to a Ghost

Dalliance and departure

Image by Lucent_Designs_dinoson20 from Pixabay.

When we made love, I was wrapped in warm tendrils and halos of brilliant color. Everywhere around me. She was the cosmos, the sheets, duvet and pillows. She was the flesh.

Heat emanated through the two-way fireplace. Flames came through the snow globe upside down. Fortunes at Christmas. And gifts. Forever etched into the pine mantle above the fireplace and in the worn satin of the stockings. Red cheeks. Red toes. A moon smile. Handfuls of dainty hands, naked ankles, bent fingers and scratching nails. Pinot noir laughs. Sentiments of: I’m a tiny bit tipsy kiss me.

The ghost of Christmas past takes me into it. Past tense to present:

What is this moment but something we are supposed to have and not share. That’s a declarative, but words get heavier over time, so I speak less of them. This bed is suspension like outer space, or ocean. Here we are buoys, uncontrolled, flouncing where we flounce, landing where we land, our mouths don’t have to form sentences from syllables, because giggles do the work. Kisses fill the empty spaces.

if I sleep with 
you it’ll 
be for me
not for 
you

I love this. But words get lost in subtle cracks of nuance. That’s how I mishandle them. And they…fall. Clumsily, I gather them up. Lean close. Roll back her hosiery and deposit whispers with my lips. My fat conscience gets in the way of us. I am two disagreeing silhouettes. One of me goes to the bedroom, the other to the kitchen. They look the same, but only one is real. “You never allow yourself to enjoy anything,” she says.

She is right. I am stuck outside the moment. Like a horse braying to be let inside, knocking shoed hooves against steel gates. The sound of us is a musical symphony needing orchestration. Because I use trumpets for crowbars to pry open problems and excuses. Conscience. Again. The word feels colossal, unpleasant. Soothingly callous.

“Kiss me…” — I come closer — “…on the forehead, please.”

Sweetly.

---

Jubilation: a tripartite poem. Jubilant Jubilee. Hand-written in a notebook. Her toes wiggle while I read. I emit energy. She emits radiance. Being together is a love language for nourishment. Two inverse waves: mostly in separate frequency (because I am afraid), but when we cross — (her on the way up, me on the way down) — in the space of that second…we are…perfect. Harmony is two different somethings coming together as one thing.

I walk a fine line of don’t say too much or you’ll cheapen it. She tells me I spend too much time thinking about life and not enough time living it. She is right. I am a coward in at least twenty gradients. I am not courageous enough to make our dalliance mean something. Not strong enough to make it real.

---

I try. But she is not here. Only her legs. Only her lips and blown-out hair, her mother’s breasts, and the cream of her skin. Her body is here but she is home with her obligations, money, children. She is home in her mansion, home in the portraiture of her life. Home with her husband who is more important than time, more important than listening in a way that transcends space and slows passage.

(Now I wonder where essence comes from.) Her legs are a vee wrapping me in cursive. They are scissors ready to close. Pain and pleasure. Acute angles. Together we make a triangle. We add to 180. I don’t know it yet, but this is why I’ll turn and walk away.

We take turns holding the pen. Sharing dialogue with our bodies. She takes cues from me, and I take cues from her. A dance of synchrony. I am in the process of deciding I will keep what I’ve borrowed from her, because this will be the last time.

I am young. I feel, now, very foolish that I am here. That I believed she wanted me. I feel very stupid for thinking I was the coward. The sun is coming up, I do not belong here. But I show no sign. Men are stoic.

---

I go through the lovemaking because she expects it, and because I love her. I cannot help but wonder why she does it? That’s an interrogative. She is complicated. And life is complicated. And she is so beautiful when she is complicated with her brown eyes and honey hair. She is something I do not have.

In the space of all this momentous lovemaking I realize what is happening. The space has become a musician’s session and I’m auditioning. Something she enjoys on a night out. Snow is falling. I try not to cry. I succeed. My lips tremble. She asks what is wrong.

But I don’t know how to explain something I cannot face. So, I know it alone. I know it in my heart. You are not mine and were never mine.

I go into her like a sinking ship. Below the waters to a ship graveyard of serenity. I toss in her waves, the storm rages. She’s in tears, which I find confusing. Maybe she loves me. It doesn’t matter. This will be the last time.

---

I wanted this to mean more. Anything. But these words are never said. They just hang in the air: what did you expect? And there is no answer because I am a stupid man and stupid boy and stupid fool for loving a woman I was not supposed to love. The knife plunges through me to the graveyard. Settles there.

The fireplace flickers and I realize I have been here too long. This is no longer where I belong, and these are things I no longer believe in. The room is warm, my stomach is upset, and my faith is gone. Another example of wet ash and blank coals. In the future I will think it always ends this way.

The drapes look very plain, the sheets feel rough, fractal patterns in the room go crash. I hate hotels, I hate the wallpaper, I hate fake gold, I hate her money, I hate her husband, I hate her fucking Louboutins, I hate myself.

---

Ash Mountains. A fitting place for a man turned to cinder. We are mostly quiet on the return drive, winding down the road from the mountain resort. James Morrison sings a song: “I won’t let you go,” but:

this 
must
be the
end

Silence. Strange how ghosts can kill you.

---

Hey, I’m Roman. I’m working on my debut novel, 20XX, a work in magical realism. I also vlog about the writer’s journey on Substack.