Goodbye Again

The man on the airplane is reading - an interesting activity for a young person these days. I immediately assume (without reading the title of the book) that he is of another cultural ethos. I keep glancing over, looking behind my mother as she speaks to me about sudoku and taxes. He is handsome and it is fun to watch him shift positions in the un-accomodating space of economy seats.

My heart beats with subtle intensity - curiously notable when compared to that of its normal resting rhythm, but not too fast. I tell myself to go over there. The drum within my chest responds in turn, making it difficult to read my book in peace. The decision to approach him is inevitable - either I spend the next eight hours with an erect throat, pretending to calmly enjoy my regular en route activities, or I say hello. After a chicken or beef entree and halfway through a bad movie, I make the move.

He glances up at me with beautiful dark eyes. His face is open and kind. I tell him he looks familiar, terribly so, and I smile because - while the comment is true - it is not that kind of familiarity. It is the recognition of connection - the familiarity of a lover-to-be or a kiss yet unrealized.

I speak with him for moments leaning over the seat. I stand in the aisle casually draped over the back of the chair and cock my head to the side, intrigued by the foreignness of his American English, excited by the look of pleasure on his face. He invites me to sit with him. I hop in. Naturally. The sensation in my chest has softened with the execution of my approach, and now extends like sunshine in all directions.

He has very straight teeth behind his lovely mouth which reminds me of my breasts, so I decide to touch them as we converse. How might we know one another? He knows I don't know him.  We relax into comfortable banter.  A word, a philosophy, a birthdate, the books we are reading, a sharing of politely intimate details. We ride the exchange, brains speaking sweetly while bodies negotiate their eventual meeting.

In no time my back rests against the soft inward arc of his chest and stomach. I watch the way he moves his hands. I let myself enter them, experience from their perspective, my own fingers drawing lines up and down his forearm, tracing the shape of his thumb, the skin between his knuckles. Is it forced shared space that impels the immediacy of feeling? Is it time travel that inspires rapid connection, or would real life have produced a similar circumstance? I ponder irrelevant questions and sink more deeply into his chest. The sound of his voice in my left ear is so familiar, just like I knew it would be. Soon it is his lips on my cheek.

I kiss him now. Roll my body over and reach further into his. Beneath blankets fashioned from old felt puppets, surrounded with recycled air and flight attendant call buttons, we breathe into one another's mouths. I lick his lips and now it is his hand on my breast. I unclench my jaw and let light wash the place where my thighs meet, where our legs begin to tangle. With my hand against his back, I pull him closer to me, I feel his tongue. He has become erect and the whorls of my body are now damp. Desire builds in our mutual wanting, but the genius of this interaction lives in its apparent lack of resolution. Despite the desperate tenting of these gimcrack covers, we cannot make a bedroom. Instead, it is the unfinished longing that serves as the orgasm. Moist petals and rigid organs accompany quiet moans, fuel a final attempt at human integration. The paradox of our climax is amusing. Aching for more, we exhale into gentle resolve.

This is where the honeymoon becomes a little bitter.  A few stories, favorite movies and the electronic identities that mean so little, lay in a pile around us. Only the kisses are honest now, and our creatureliness is ready for sleep.  I go back to 33B.

Decades pass as we dream in our respective seat assignments. We travel the world and have babies and watch them grow. We endure small dramas and disagree. We hold hands through college graduations and humbly accept awards for lifetime achievement. We become wise, wrinkled versions of ourselves and reminisce about how it once was, how it could have been. When I wake up, one (or both) of us has died, but it doesn't matter who because the lifelong romance has returned to her immortal sleep. I look over at him and wait for the heart thump, but it is replaced with a knowing contraction. Oh...it passed. It is different now, having fallen back into sweet hibernation.

Extra-pragmatic as I am, I do not believe it right away. Instead, I come back to re-visit him and cuddle (un-magickly) against his new body.

Sadness has an arduous charm, it lingers and becomes uncomfortable. Happiness, with her fickle moods, sweeps in and out more dramatically. The knowledge of her brief visits creates a more welcoming space. The sadness of acknowledging the end of our romance still sits with me, but is a tolerable reminder of our infinite exchange. I know, regardless of how many lifetimes pass between, that this connection will reform itself. Somewhere it is already happening - the awakening of a union, the variegated expression of this ever-unfolding moment.

I sigh while writing for him my (electronic) information. Superficial hopes let him kiss me one last time before stepping into the line of US Customs. The faceless lover that chases me through the bodies and lips of unsuspecting men.  Goodbye again.