Don't Ever Let Off Dreaming About Her...

            We got to Sharona’s club at around eight last night. We grabbed a drink and took a seat at one of the tables below the stage. There was a three piece jazz outfit on stage, a singer, pianist and bassist. I felt like a man in a film, waiting for something important to happen. And it did. Sharona came on stage next and blew us all away. She sang with one guy on the piano as accompaniment. Her voice was serene and the moments during which I watched her were sublime, echoing forward into ever extending memories of my future self.

            In the middle of one song she suddenly fixed her eyes directly on mine and sang two lines straight at me. It was all I could do to resist the temptation to look behind me for the man she must’ve been singing at.

            After the show she disappeared backstage and I bought another drink.

            “She’s not bad then, eh?” Ed said.

            “You’re joking! Not bad?”

            “Haha, I’m pulling your leg mate. You should’ve seen your face, jaw dropped and all.”

At this point Sharona came out to see us. She appeared behind me unexpectedly and hugged me to her. She was still wearing her performance dress. It was so different to anything I’d seen her in so far. It was emerald green, long and sleek, bringing out the green in her eyes and set in attractive contrast with her black hair and dark skin.

            “I’m so glad you came!” she said. She was vivid and vivacious, full of the nervous energy of performance.

            “You were amazing,” I said, barely audible for my own awkward nerves.

            “Thank you,” she said, with genuine humility, casting her eyes downward momentarily. “I want you both to meet my friend Miranda.”

            The four of us talked about this and that for a short while and then Sharona broke the conversation by suggesting we move elsewhere.

            “But first I have to go change. Tom, would you come backstage with me?”

            “Er… I’m not sure,” I replied. “I should really stay here with Ed. Surely I’m not really allowed backstage?”

            Ed kicked me hard in the shin.

            “Ow!” I said. Sharona laughed. “On second thoughts then…” I glared at Ed.

            Backstage turned out to be an extremely messy small room. Sharona went behind a screen to change. She was asking me about the show and I was answering mechanically. I was too occupied by the flickering shadows projecting against the wall. The rest of the time I was fighting the urge to ask ‘Why?’

            She came back around the screen, wearing ripped jeans and an open black short sleeved shirt.

            “Let’s go down to the river,” she suggested.

            “What about the others?”

            “They’ll be fine.” She smiled and took my hand. “Come on!”

            We walked down to the river and enjoyed the still warm evening. There was just enough alcohol in my blood to heighten night-time romantic reflection and I breathed the air with contentment, my troubles briefly lost like the facts of life in a cinema. Sharona sang lightly to herself, the soundtrack to my madness.

            On the bank of the river I asked her about her singing and she played shy. She told me she was tired of being treated one way or another for what she did. I pointed out that she’d invited me to watch her, but I dropped it.

            A warm breeze floated in from the swamps, bringing an intoxicating air. I looked across at Sharona and saw the air brush her face with drifting curls and slow currents. I longed to follow it with the lightest touch of the back of my hand. I knew I could fall in love right there and then. I’d only known her for what? 48 hours maybe? It was all too pre-destined, doomed. I didn’t want to start it.

            Sharona started telling me a vampire story, oblivious. It was about the docks, and she told it masterfully. I listened intently, my grip on reality sliding minute by minute.

            “You almost seem to sympathise with the vampire,” I said, when she was done.

            She smiled wanly and looked out into the river. I looked away.

            “What’s the matter?” she asked.

            “Nothing. It’s just…”

            “Yes?”

            “I… don’t want to have a mere taste of you knowing I can never have it all. You’re sweet poison, the apple of temptation. Pain follows these things.”

            She leant across and kissed me before I could think of stopping her. She ran her hands through my hair, then about my neck and over my chest, forcing me back onto the ground where we sat. I was utterly dominated, destroyed, submitting to her passion willingly blinded and finally, released into spectacular and euphoric oblivion.

            “Screw the Garden of Eden, Tom,” she said, letting me go for a moment. “God didn’t make man for paradise. Follow the lust in your blood, the vampire in your veins. Come, Tom.”

            And she took me by the hand and led me back to her house. We went straight to her bed and fell on top of one another. We lay there kissing and gazing into one another’s eyes. All my awkwardness was gone. We were acting as one. We didn’t make love, but expressed our passion with caress and serpentine embrace until, after hours, we drifted away.

 

*

 

            I woke this morning filled with immediate, if uncertain, joy. By the light of day I saw Sharona’s room: a bizarre con-fusion of gothic and vintage, decadent in either case. Sharona herself continued to sleep by my side, black hair trailing back across the pillow and onto my cheek, one arm across my chest. I felt I could die right there, without one regret.

            Part of me still thought it all ridiculous, but the other part was filled with sense of strange and sure confidence. The Rules of Life say this kind of thing couldn’t happen, but there I was. I’ve never felt more thoroughly distant from reality in the stark light of morning. I looked across at her again and couldn’t make it fit. I got up quietly and left her there.

            Outside the sun shone warmly on my skin and I could barely move for running or speak for shouting. Strangers turned their heads to watch my grin walk past them. I wanted to stop them right there and tell them all about it. My head was spinning. I broke into a run and sprinted straight through a park without slowing down. It seemed as though I had no more physical limitation, I could run forever.

            I flashed past a café on the other side and suddenly stopped. I returned to it and bought a continental breakfast to take away.

            A short while later I walked back through Sharona’s door as though it were the most natural thing. She took the brown paper bag out of my hands and looked me up and down.

            “Thanks for this,” she said, and smiled, apparently unconcerned over my disappearance. “You’re sweating,” she said, and pressed a finger into neck. She ran it down to my chest pressing hard into my flesh. I couldn’t breathe for the tension. “Why don’t you go have a shower?”

            So I did, but I was barely in there thirty seconds before she joined me. She came from behind and ran her hands over my chest again. It was too much. I wanted to wait but this was too much. I turned and lifted her right off her feet, putting her against the wall of the shower. I fucked her right there, releasing every bit of tension and restraint within me. It was the best fuck of my life. Water ran down her black hair and over her breasts as she wrapped her legs around my waist, drawing me further into her. She was divine.

 

*

 

            “So, you looked like you were packing to leave yesterday Tom,” she said to me later, over breakfast.

            “Yes, I was.”

            She looked across at me and paused, hesitantly.

            “Is that why you’re doing all this Sharona, safe in the knowledge that I was leaving?”

            “I never said ‘don’t go.’” she replied, looking away.

            “So, in a minute, you’re gone, I get nothing, and you’re off with barely a sigh.”

            “Don’t go.”

            They were lines. But more than lines, they were lyrics. It’s from a song called This Ruined Puzzle, by Dashboard Confessional. It was contemporary Shakespeare and it connected us on another level. It was beautiful and we needed nothing more. We simply smiled at one another.

            Eventually I put down my cup and walked around to her. I leant down to where she sat and kissed her, ever so gently, full on the mouth. I made to leave but she stopped me. She handed me a book.

            “I’ve hidden a note, it’s pressed between pages that I’ve marked to find my way back. It says, ‘does he ever get the girl?’”

            “But what if the pages stay pressed, the story too dull to unfold?”

            “Don’t go.”

            “I won’t.” I said, smiled, and left. She knew what I meant.

 

*

 

            Back at the hostel this afternoon I met up with Ed.

            “I’ve changed my mind about everything, Ed,” I said, “we’re not going anywhere. I’m in love.”

            “Me too, mate.”

            I started, then remembered the other girl from last night and laughed. I doubt very much he meant it as I did, but mostly I was just glad he didn’t want to go.

            This evening I opened Sharona’s book, Labyrinths by Borges. The note she’d hidden was on the first page of a story called The Circular Ruins. The story started with a quote from Alice Through the Looking Glass:

 

            “And if he ever let off dreaming about you…”

           

            Sharona’s note read ‘Don’t ever let off dreaming Tom.’

            At the bottom of the note she’d scribbled a phone number.