Half the battle of an early morning departure to the airport is just the simple fact that the weekend is over...and work looms like a specter around the corner, gnashing teeth and claws.
He awoke in the cold and padded to the shower, the steam blooming...his hands found soap and his skin was suds and her remembered the last time her skin had born the same soapy slipperiness...his mind was a fog from that encounter, her frame enveloped in bubbles, pink parts evident, her hair darker where wet...she had been laughing and there had been a debate about the exact amount of bubble bath needed to achieve optimum results: revealing just a little, but not too much. But not totally obscuring.
He turned off the shower and pulled the towel from the overhang...the shower had briefly raised the temperature but he was cooling off quickly.
He departed in the morning when the sun was still asleep and the air was a mix of grays and whites...supremely quiet, just the sound of his shoes on the pebbles to the car. The big vehicle and driver were early and he was thankful to be setting off maybe early enough to avoid bad traffic.
The exhaust of the SUV plumed behind it...and he could see his breath when he exhaled.
He remembered the first few kisses, stolen in a freezing afternoon...it had been sleeting, and it was the exact opposite of the temperature in his mind which was ravenously heated and smoldering...the way her cold lips parted into a warm mouth and when they finally pulled away their exhalations were puffy white clouds that mingled, just as they were before.
He stepped into the car, the heat already on and warming him...but from the outside in...not like her, who caused it from within.
The driver asked if he wanted any music or news and he shook his head...he was in a delicate balance now...the lingering effects of waking early, the slow rising thoughts of her like a dawn on the horizon of his brain and the sky outside still staying steel colored. As they drove the lane he saw the day lightening a little, and against the trees and the forest little spaces of fog emerged, like thoughts blossoming in a cartoon...contrasting against the dark colors and making artificial light.
He glanced at his watch...it was still early...but he hoped somewhere out there she was waking, maybe turning onto her back and blinking slowly, trying to start her day in a much better way but still tackling the first day...and thus the worst day of the week.
He smiled as he thought about speaking with her soon and settled back into his warm leather seat, the fog outside and in his brain starting to dissipate.
In the early hours of a Monday.
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