Tactile memory

The orange light of the afternoon traces the contour of her naked body. She is falling asleep, her chest barely going up and down with her light breathing. Only in those relaxed moments of obliviousness one may notice in her face the look of a little girl, both innocent and amused, something she will often avoid, as if it was at odds with her otherwise strong nature. Her warm skin is the smoothest surface on earth now. He caresses her slowly. His body, his mind, have vanished in the air, only to concentrate again in his fingertips. Everything that he is, his present and his future, his fears, his hopes, his endless desire for her, is now embodied in those tiny parts of him, which barely fondle her back, her neck, and her hips. However, he is not there, but far away. She will be just a memory for a while. But he can smell her, see her, hear her breathing, have her taste in his mouth as if he was only a few centimeters from her. More important, he realizes for the first time ever that he has developed a very special faculty: even if all those senses were  blocked in him, he could identify her at once just touching her, embracing her, stroking lightly her skin. «Could you recognize me if you could just use your touch?», she asked him once… He could nearly cry of joy hardly realising her sudden arousal when his fingers made the smallest contact with her body. Never before he thought possible two people could communicate so deeply and reach such level of mutual perception by only using one of the human senses.

Photo: ‘Curves and stripes’, 2008 © Mintpics