delilah

My eyes narrowed as they desperately clung to the fragments of light shining through the shutter slits. I looked upon her barely moving figure to the clock. It was nearly time. I shifted off the bed as soundlessly as my exhausted body would allow, and one last kiss on the forehead of my wife and the click of a lock would ensure my absence until morning. And then I would go see her.

I sat at the café table, flicking ashes off the third cigarette of the night. The prospect of death was welcomed and I dearly wished that sleep – even if eternal – would plague me.

“Does she know you’re an insomniac?”

My eyes shut momentarily in superficial contemplation at the rhetorical question while I exhaled the contents of my lungs. When I opened my eyes, hers were simply on my cigarette as she fished for it from between my fingers. She brought it to her lips and enclosed them around the cylinder. She took a seemingly satisfying drag from it and her eyes closed in gratification, while her lips curled in amusement.

“Have you slept at all since we last met? You hadn’t called in four days, I was worried you had found another woman.” Her eyes flickered a devious smile under her coat of lashes. She was a beautiful; a true goddess. Unknowing depths lay in her hazel eyes and the dim lighting from the nearby streetlight merely enhanced her dark persona.

“No… I haven’t slept since then. That’s why I needed to see you tonight.” My body trembled under the weight of my words. She took another drag of the cigarette and leaned over the table to give me a languorous open mouthed kiss. Damn, she was getting good at this. Her lips tasted of her trademark cherry lipstick she always wore and her breath transferred some of the delicious smoke into my mouth. The kiss brought a flush of memories to my mind, and I longed for her skin under my fingertips and my lips upon hers.

Her eyes remained on mine, even when she retreated back onto her seat. She let the butt drop to the cement, and casually her heel extinguished it.

“Bridgette…”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get your medicine tonight.” She was better than Valium and she knew it.

The room smelt of cheap booze and sex, with profanities and declarations of love scrawled on the walls in an unsightly manner. It mattered no longer, though, as time itself began to fade and the only thing I could smell was cherry lipstick and smoke. In my ears I could hear my own blood rushing with every heartbeat. Our bodies trembled and finally stilled as liberation freed us both. I dropped onto Bridgette’s trembling figure, exhaling a sigh of relief.

“Tonight…” I breathed. “Tonight I can sleep…”