What Lips my Lips have Kissed and Where and Why?

Ill have you know, all you critics out there, this was my first short story, so be easy.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why?

            What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why? Three years ago when she walked out of thirty year old red-cedar door of my recently sold Victorian home, it tore me apart. I had asked myself that question everyday, every minute, every second of my life alone, without her. She rent my heart in two, shattered every aspiration, and ground my happiness into the cold, rain-soaked asphalt she drove away on

Free Street

Greensboro, North Carolina

. Since then I have moved. Perhaps even moved on from the ache, from the deep longing that dragged on through those long autumn months. I entered winter, a resolute and lonely tree.

            Those years were the worst, after she left. I walked my home like a ghost. I began to withdraw into myself. Everyday, as I woke up and rolled to my right, I would gaze on her photo from Valentines Day two years passed. It was my favorite, she was smiling, she my sweetheart, was happy, she had accepted my proposal.  I can still remember the hot tears burn my face. Gazed in the mirror and watched them carve lines of pearly anguish on my cheeks. I didn’t go to work any longer. My attendance started to slip before becoming non-existent all together. I was fired, and I couldn’t care less. My life had lost all meaning; there was no more reason for a continuation of my languished existence.

            My family contacted me; they whispered words of comfort through the scratchy receiver of my far-too old Samsung phone residing on my end table. My mother used to tell me I was making progress, answering the phone, making conversation. Only a women as deluded as my over-protective seventy year old mother from Topeka Kansas, could mistake my poor attempts at ending the transaction of pleasantries, as soon as family courtesy would allow, as conversation.
            I can still remember the very feel of the air that day. The taste of the sawdust and ozone from the recent thunder storm that’s remnants still waded over our, my, house. In hindsight it must have been symbolic; it must’ve been planned that way. To have the heavy rains patter and splash on my tin roof. The heavy fat drops set the tone of my evening, I came home roses in hand, with only three weeks till the day we would bind our lives forever. I yelled my arrival with a throaty hello to an empty household. I rushed upstairs and burst through the door into the empty master bedroom. I froze at the sight of the 48in x 24in suitcase filled to the brim with clothes I’d seen her wear a thousand times. The roses made near enough to no noise as the connected with the plush beige carpet. I heard the slam of my new cedar door, rough and emotional. My throat caught, I’ve lost her.

            She came up the stairs, one at a time, slowly, deliberately. My heart broke in step with the clatter of her heels on the hardwood. Every step lengthened into an eternity in the enclosure of panic I’d encompassed around myself. The world slowed, I could see the very curve of the earth, see the rotation. Sweat beaded my brow and slicked my body in perspiration with a thin sheen of the vile odorous chemical, adding to my discomfort. The door clicked shut with immense speed comparatively to the skewed outlook on the world I had but moments before. She walked toward me, head down; unawares I stood stock still and shocked five feet away. She looked up at the sound of my voice, “Where are you going?” She looked dumb-founded, frightened. Undoubtedly she expected to leave before I came home. Perhaps she would’ve left a note, or some other type of message. The only thing she did leave though; was her ring. “I’m leaving Johnny.” She placed the ring on the dresser by our bed. She then proceeded to walk right past me and closed her suitcase, then walked right back through the door. As she passed me I caught the scent of her shampoo, a mango tropical type of 2 in 1. It hit me like a sledgehammer sent straight from god. It barreled into my chest and buried itself into my heart with the force of a thousand nail guns. She left me there, barren and alone, an empty husk of my former self. I watched her start the car and drive right out of my life. I believe that’s when my heart truly broke, when the realization hit me that I would never see her again, or feel her touch, I fell to my knees and my arms began to tremble. That was three years ago, and this is now.

            I stared into those eyes I longed for since the day they left me, the deep pearly blue that shone like diamonds. This time beads of sparkling white gold dripped form her eyes onto the leather couch in my one bedroom flat in New York City. How did she find me? Where did she go? Why did she come? These questions now ran through my head, and to be honest with myself, I don’t care. My sweetheart had come home to me, she was explaining to me, how sorry she was, the mistakes the made, and the problems she had. She tells me over, and over, “I love you Johnny, I love you again.” It was almost a whisper. I realized with a start, she was scared, scared of me rejecting her. How could she think that? I loved her, longed for her to come right through the door I knew she never would. She proved me wrong yet again, she had come.

            She cried in my arms for what felt like hours, but in reality, must’ve only lasted a minute or two. She apologized with a shaky laugh, I was speechless. She, Victoria my Vicky was sorry, for what? For coming back to me? For putting the pieces of my heart back into place? I asked her, why, why would she of all people be sorry? I explained to her that the sight of her sent my heart aflutter pumping white hot blood through my veins. She looked at me closely, “I spoke to your mother.” I froze, of course, my mother would have told her I was broken, shell shocked, shaken. I stopped her, and told her one more time, “You’re here, and I love you as much as the day you left. I promise you, so long as you are with me; you have nothing to be sorry for.” She stared into my eyes with a newfound passion.

            She moved closer to me, just an inch, but I knew her intent. Her breathing quickened with the beat of my heart. She drew closer; my breathing became quick and shallow. Her face upturned ever so slightly, letting the light fall on her long brown lashes. She was as beautiful as the day I met her. It was a desensitizing feeling. Her so close to me again, I knew her scent before it hit me, the fresh mango and a new tantalizing citrus blend. She leaned in till a wisp of air was the only thing separating our lips from what I had once taken for granted, but what I wanted now more than ever.

                        Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she stared deep into my eyes, which seemed to ask for guidance or maybe permission. I couldn’t offer either one, I was hers entirely, and with slight shock and widening of my eyes, I realized she didn’t know of her power over me. It was a realization that emboldened me. I wanted to lean in, close the distance. It was a near physical pain to hold myself back. Why? I asked myself, why should I stop or, slow down when this, right here this moment was what I had longed for the past three years? I searched myself, delved within my head and in an instant gripped the horrible terrifying reason to why I halted her advance.

            I was scared. The thought of her being back with me, just beyond that half inch barrier of oxygen heartened, excited and filled me with an exuberant joy. Though that feeling, that reality, was tainted. In her sudden reappearance I had forgotten the hole she had left when she drove away from me. When I felt its ache again it scared me. What if she left again? I tried to calm myself but knew it would be impossible to survive another traumatic experience like that. If she walked out again it would destroy me. I contemplated this, I analyzed this, and I couldn’t come to a conclusion.

            I leaned in and went with it. Connection. Our lips pressed together with a vigor of a hurricane washing and storming along the coast. Her smell once again enveloped me and it pushed me on, faster more passionate. She broke off to take a breath; I inhaled the sweet aroma and welcomed her as she delved back to my lips. My heart screamed its approval as she allowed me trace her collarbone and the smooth contour of her porcelain neck with my lips. We rolled to my leather couch and our bodies pressed together. Sweat poured from our forms and mixed as we continued with our dance. She whispered in my ear “I’ve missed you Johnny, I love you.” Her words set my heart ablaze like the forest fires of California in an august heat wave. I answered her with a renewed energy and longing.

            She was mine again, and amidst the huff and puff of our actions my mind registered the incredible situation I was in. My mind must’ve exploded because beyond that recognition I knew nothing of what was going on outside my living room. I knew not the day, week, month, or year. I cared not because my entire existence now lied in my arms.

            Eventually our bodies slowed down, and our breathing while heavy wound itself out till it was a slow and monotonous ebb and flow. We moved to my bedroom and she closed her eyes under my quilt, and her breathing became the deep and heavy breathing of a person at rest. I lied there in love’s warm embrace and reveled. My heart was back; my home was where she is. She was with me, and I could not be happier than I was now. My heart and body and mind all in unison cheered and roared its approval of my night. My skin still burned pleasantly where we touched, like aloe on a heavy unprotected sunburn.

            A low grainy vibration came from my bead stand on the other side of my mattress. I reached across her body and plucked it from its charger. My mother was calling, her name flashed repeatedly on my phones small and insignificant screen. I sighed, and then decided to let it ring; undoubtedly she wanted to know if I had come out of my stupor. I wouldn’t let my mood end that quickly. I wrapped my arms around her and fell asleep with her cradled next to me, this was right this was love. What lips my lips have kissed and where, and why? Didn’t matter anymore, what mattered was wrapped around my cool body and slowly sleeping till morn.