Fermata - English version

They opened their eyes and saw themself with the face turned to the left, towards the big window without curtains, from which they could see the grains of dust rise from the ground and dance against the merciless arrows of the sun rays that came in. Part of them had the impression of awakening from something. All that happened before they loosened their sore eyelids didn’t seem real, but more like that which echoes like a dream that doesn’t want to feel distant. That doesn’t exactly want to be wiped off from memory, embodied in a statement they thought they’d heard.
It was upon gazing at themself that truth didn’t allow itself to be denied – on the unbuttoned and displaced clothes (albeit still on the body), the aching back, the emptiness of the room and inside the chest. In the tears that came warmer than a last loving embrace which there never was and shouldn’t be the last one and stuck them in a place and position as a sign of disbelief and defeat written in huge font. In their heavy but also shallow breath.
Deep down, it left them imagining if there was something in the air which gave both parties away even after all those years and, had it been noticed, could have been avoided. But nothing concrete went through their mind except the remainder of a track of cologne in the library that slowly faded away for good. And it was upon trying to recap what had happened that they thought to have found a meaning to it that was no less painful.
Right above the stairs of that home office/library, they opened the house’s door to a face they knew very well, who came over to another of those visits which, even as natural and frequent as breathing, always managed to blow some fresh air on everything. As usual, both headed to the basement: the place where there lived the words, the stories, and the most beautiful silences. This time taking glasses and a bottle of wine against the cold that kept their hands inside the pockets and made their breaths visible above their eyes even in the middle of the afternoon.
The wine would slowly make both voices soft and smooth while they read maybe not so random excerpts from the books they’d choose and hold like one holds a child or a flower. To get to feel the sound and effect of another person’s words in their mouths and on the person to whom they read whilst walking dreamily around the chamber with attentive ears, gazes that meet upon rising from the page. Or even reciting things they knew by heart.
After sitting on an armchair near the stairways with one leg crossed over the other, the owner of the house closed their eyes rather sleepy by the alcohol and, like in a meditation, tried to pay attention solely on the sound of the other person’s voice and their own breathing; perhaps in an attempt to stop time and remain there, under that golden half-light forever… Their companion was the kind of lover who would say they admired such capacity to focus on the present and nothing more - which made them smile from within.
The kind of trance they were in was deep enough not to let them notice that the other party was approaching until they felt their weight on the legs and a light nibble on the jawline, close to the mouth. Something like an instinct whispered for them to wrap the arms around whom looked at them and hold against the heart as tight as possible, and that’s what they did.
It felt like before - like the times when it happened by custom even if just to rest being close, to hear the breathing. Or to have a place where to cry without saying anything and with the bonus of not feeling so alone. But those who looked at it from the outside would know that the pair of hands on the waist and the one around the neck were no longer the same, as much as they’d like to deny it. Despair, however unconscious, always reveals us.
After a few minutes like this and within an aura of near-deadly silence, the one who occupied the armchair pulled the other’s face away from their shoulder a few centimeters so as to look them in the eyes. They tilted their head and almost got scared of the raspiness of their own voice.
“That story… Your story… Tell me that one again, my love.”
Still with the arms around those shoulders like children tend to do with the adults, the interlocutor exposed the arch of the throat in an almost pensive fashion, blinking slowly, until they took a deep breath and nodded, also very slowly. They got up in their languid manner and began the story with hands behind the back and gaze fixed on the other’s gaze.
Perhaps because of the very content of what they were saying, who told it behaved with a rather specific body language, almost like in a choreography. But doesn’t it always happen like this? However, to the audience, what mattered most was not the words (even though they were quite sad and beautiful in their sadness), but how they were enunciated.
Despite having seen and heard all of it thousands of times, both in public and in private, it never seemed like the same thing. Their sharp eye and soul that could still be easily moved was able to notice the subtle changes on each occasion - and this only made the whole thing look more and more attractive. It wasn’t for nothing that they had fallen hopelessly in love for that being.
On that day, in particular, there was something beautifully ethereal and painful, but at the same time magnetic and dirty in those gestures and smiles which, more than before, brought a moan to their voice that they could not hide. That conjoined being struck by a sudden slow pain and a wave of pleasure right after, but that were not related. It was hard to explain.
Just like it had happened some other times, a thing or two made the one who was listening to rise from where they were and walk around the chamber so as to follow who told the story as if also being part of the “dance” (albeit the gestures and words spoke of the loneliness of no longer recognizing oneself, knowing it is a bad thing, and yet even so much as a little, clinging to it because the feeling on the surface is good).
The one telling the story noticed the other part was following them very close. Probably deliberately they made everything feel more intense than ever before. Before anyone realized it, there they were with the fingertips pressed on the curve of the loved one’s waist, who ended up leaning against the bookshelves with rather weakened legs.
The speaker’s bangs would lightly brush that face due to the closeness to the ear of a warm, soft, smooth, and airy voice. As time went by, the more both bodies shortened the distance between each other and, during the brief pauses between one sentence and the next, one could hear one of the voices ask for a kiss from under intersected draws of breath. That the mouth wanted, but which was denied at first, in the teasing gesturing of sticking to the cheek closest nearby.
Feeling the books’ spines pressure against the skin from over the clothes, they shut the eyes for an instant so as to deviate from those that pulled them in. They tried concentrating on the words they were hearing; something about the emotion in the words made their eyelids burn as the other beautiful hand of their opposite gently held up their chin. And in their head echoed broken hearts and faces that no longer looked the same…
Until the fingers upon their chin relax and slide down, quite cold, towards their neck, but the temperature difference doesn’t bother. The anticipation in it wouldn’t let them move, even wanting to throw themself in those arms. Those hands moved from where they were after staying in place for a while; palms full of hair and with fast heartbeats under them, slowly granting to one side what the other desired. What seemed to intoxicate the one being kissed even more was not what they had drunk but instead the aftertaste they could feel in between the commissures. It was like being knocked out of one’s self.
Both pulling apart for a millisecond allowed the one being kissed to see their movement by reflex of pulling the collar of the kisser’s long coat rather bruskly, making it slide away from the shoulder. Then both came closer for another slow, long, and hungry kiss, which seemed to suck the air from the receiving end’s lungs and make them sweat. They heard themself begging for more upon feeling as though many other pairs of hands devoured them.
It had never crossed their mind to enquire whether the story they heard was something made up, fished from somewhere else, or a piece of the past. In a way, it didn’t really matter if it was a bluff. All of it was sad and beautiful by itself; even the tired, deep and needy sigh from the other person after the last word and last kiss, reverberating on the walls and against the skin. They caught themself trembling from the cold upon sliding down a little, with the impression that the steps that walked away were just a trick from the arousal that was fading. Only later they would understand everything and also nothing… That in so many words one can also say “There was nothing left to be done”.