Reprise

It was still thundering when they drifted outside...tucked into each other as they walked almost awkwardly down the hall to the porch.  The rain steamed around them, blurring the light gray, thin white streaks in a torrent.  The afternoon smelled scrubbed, showered, Sunday-best.  It was lightening up a little too, and though the rain volume didn't slacken the sky was whiter and the proximity of the lightning was moving away.

She pulled him down the few stairs and they stepped into the rain.

It was almost stinging, the movement from shelter to exposure...they were both sopped in a few seconds.

Good thing you didn't dry your hair.

He pulled a hand through his hair to keep him from looking like a 10 year old with bangs.  He pushed it straight back and shrugged.

Her hair was clinging to her, making the cheekbones more prominent.  She looked a little as if to shiver.
So he grabbed her and pulled her in, her wet clothes soaking through to his, the tee shirt clinging and useless.  He could feel skin on skin almost, felt the beating heart, the darts of her nipples, the heat of her body temperature against his chest, the only place that seemed warm.  He was awash in the scents of her, the lotions and the soaps.

And then the rain stopped.  Like a turned off hose.  Left only the drippings from the gutters, the slight tremors in the puddles.  The grass was almost reflective, the trees fresh planted.  Like God had hung an air-freshener right beside them.  With that thought he jerked with a little laugh.  She raised her head but then tucked it back down against his collar line.

In the fast colliding hug, there is barely ever the chance to absorb...usually it is a reach, and the arms mix with each other and then there is a connection at the shoulders.  In an embrace, it is a cocoon.  It is a cloister.  It is a hot pocket.  It is the geography of her aligning with the topography of him.  It fits.  And lines up.  And the longer it lasts the more one notices the connection points, the touch points...and in the gradually lightening skies that started to begin to turn a bit blue, he pulled her into him as hard as he could, hoping to draw her into him and as close to him as his body could allow.  To make the monstrous thoughts inside his head of her finally meet the beauty of the physical her in a place and time that was suddenly now.