In morning after wake of love and dream, they slept through gloam of dawn’s beginning and rose to full-view cast of golden light through east window of the room. In its warmth and light, they shone in glow of shared soothe and after-peace that is exhaustion of intimate affections well-expressed.
They appeared in a radiance cast of both sun and soul.
From bed they descended to floor beneath. Resting at kitchen table, they drank coffee and smiled still in the energy and affection of their expressions, warmth of the sun pairing to that of heart within; and they smiled, sitting beside rather than across, as they gazed on the gold framed and in beam upon them from source of stairwell window, maple tree beyond casting scatter of its light whose warmth and shadow-cool played upon their forms.
As they rested, warming further in their coffee, James gave to Annie a story written day before. He watched her as she read, the fix of her eyes, soft changes in expressions, way her mouth curled in gentle smile, and too when drawing small, pensive in a thought.
He studied the way she rested head while reading. In start and focus, she read with head vertical, face bended over page; and as she read on, her posture eased, lightly canting to a side. It was then her smile and eyes lit most, and he loved to read and see her change.
When finished, her eyes and focus rose, returned to James again.
“You wrote the romance beautifully,” Annie told, “but can you write the rest?”
James listened.
“It is a beautiful romance,” Annie spoke more, “but it is airy and open-ended. It gives a feeling, an idea, but there is more to the feeling to bring one to believe that it is true. A distant sentiment is not personal. It doesn’t come, complete, to life.
Can you write the rest?”
Annie sighed, drawing into her thoughts, finding way for what and how she wished to say. In contemplation, her head tilted again to side as a smile spread meek across lips’ corners as eyes searched into the ray of light in beam showing from stairwell window, its light and changing playing for her eyes as branch beyond swayed in September wind.
She changed her position in seat, switching the crossing of her legs, fall of chemise covering the high of her thighs as length and loveliness of rest shone free, dance of the light playing too over open arms and high chest and white gown covering body in fall from thin straps holding fine over slope and line of shoulders.
A soft laugh voiced light as she ran a hand, drawing, through her hair, strands catching and brushing long and fine through finger-comb of brush and stroke.
She thought of a holy metaphor, and she thought it absurd that—to her of all—it should speak.
“The Jews forgot God because It became so distant and divorced from their living existence that he failed to resonate and affect even as ideal. They fixed and lost focus, holding to the written rules as if they were God and the virtue. But in their immanent self-centeredness, they were divorced from their laws’ reason and source; and it took God himself coming down—as human flesh and form—into the living world to assert again His word of Truth and the example and standard of His love.
Living man had to watch him live, suffer, love, and die—all the living emotions—and record it all in written stories, so that man might believe again.
For a story to affect, last, and endure it must speak and feel in the most personal and intimate ways. That’s what gives it life. If you wish an audience to believe again in the wonder and awe and sacredness of spirit-romance, to a generation and world where it is cheapened and forgotten, you must tell it through the flesh, prove and show and make us believe again…”
Annie blushed in both a hope and consciousness of nakedness, not of body but of heart and telling spirit; and of these, when shared, she sensed herself most exposed and conscious of another’s care and handling of delicateness and vulnerability.
“Can you write the rest and other too?” Annie asked again. “I want to feel it on my skin, within and beneath. I want to feel it through body, heart and life-bound spirit; flushed and overwhelmed in conviction of its truth discerned in all its sensory. Make me believe the romance in effect I cannot deny.
If this is the story you wish to tell, tell it all, not just the airy and high ideal. Without touching in affections, expression in the flesh, the story remains beautiful, but it is distant.
Write the rest. Write it all. You will give it life making me and others believe. If this is your aim, don’t overthink it. Don’t hold back. Write it all.”
She did not want the story to stay distant. There was so much promise, potential, hope within it she could feel.
As he helped her to write and find her own stories and dreams, she would do the same for him.
Her smile changed, its spread greater and stronger and lasting in stay as another laugh of levity rose and sounded from her spirit. She moved to touch him, warmth and muscle of his thigh as she leant near, kissing him soft on lips, lingering in sense and heat and gentle breath across his own, then drawing back, changed smile returned to lips.
“You will help me with my stories, and I will help you with your own. It is a beautiful beginning, but it needs more to make it real. There is more you must tell. Can you write the rest?”
James listened, and Annie felt the skin of her body rise, warmth of an anticipation as she read his face, his focus, knowing he wrote her then for saving in his mind; and when he moved, gold of the stairwell window danced, dazzled, then disappeared as he moved and took her into hold, raising in guide, meet of lips, his breath over sensing face; eyes opening, gold-light restored in dazzle and daze and dance.
A story wrote.
Words would come, but first the story lived.