Night settled. Annie was alone, alone in room to self and thoughts where lamplight burned in amber aura from beneath shade that colored with its tone space and features of the silent room.
Annie poured a second night-glass into long-stemmed glass she held from neck. White, cool and crisp and fresh, soft-shocking sense in strike and wash over lips and palate; its chill and taste was given further accent by cool openness of the room stirred in night wind that breathed through opened window and swayed drawn curtains of cotton hue and woven thread that shone light in day-sun but deepened in way and tone when night and lamp’s amber glow settled and took.
Night breathed into the room, wind stirring as if presence of second soul, and in dance-movement of curtain’s draw, Annie settled into a something between thought and dream, like wind—an imagined second presence.
She thought of his eyes, shallows with their hue that ringed deeper centers that, somehow, seemed to see and tell into depths of her own, an expression of recognition and witness—understanding—without word or sign beyond that spoken in silence of stare.
She imagined her hands, interwoven fingers in brace behind neck, her forearms in rest on shoulders chest beneath; his hands on the low of her back, fingertips’ press in dimpled depressions where held.
She closed her eyes, sensed fall and sweep of changing hold that raised her from beneath, drawing body and lips in rise to his; the press and after-linger of his kiss, warmth and wind of breath’s stir in after-draw away then pause and the hold of time as each read—measuring, speaking—in silence of held stare.
Sweetness of wine stayed on lips; taste flared as embers with every soft breath upon.
Annie moved nearer toward amber glow, as curtains stirred on new wind-breath. In taking in of own, Annie drew deep the cool and scent of wind’s breath then collapsed in sink and deep press of body into catching sofa under, lie open-facing amber and wind. In room’s glow, night’s wind, taste’s staying—sweet on lips—Annie warmed as spirit moved, like window’s blow, to effect of second presence imagined in the wind.