Seeking With Their Eyes Shut
She drinks scotch when she needs him, but he's not there. It's that familiar perfume – warm, spicy, slightly bitter and ever so intoxicating – that pours inside her, filling the void she always feels when she's alone. Her solitude is constantly broken by an endless stream of people who want and need things that she is more than ready to give, but that doesn't abate it. Half of herself is far away, and a crackly voice through a bad phone line and a dozen emails a day don't make coping any easier.
No one comments on this strange habit, not even the ever tactless Serena – though many draw back from the brink of a double take when they see that proverbial figure hunched in the corner over a crystal tumbler. They skip a beat when they realise it's not him, and she smiles. Blair uses scotch like a security blanket – he will come back, it whispers. He will come back to me.
And always, like clockwork, like marionettes dancing in time, the day is done. She can relax; pull her hair out from the high twist that's been giving her a headache all day. She slips off her shoes and turns the fire up high, settling down to be lulled to sleep by the familiar cadences of Audrey and Cary and Grace. These same, familiar happy endings are soothing; they require no planning and no judgement. She doesn't even have to open her eyes. They're scotch and charade; Chuck and Blair. Blair and Chuck.
The soft touch of cashmere on her cheek wakes her in the blue-black stillness of the night. The heady scents of whisky and cigarette smoke and sweat and cologne swirl around her, all mixed together with that indefinable essence of warm, recognisable, know-them-with-your-eyes-shut lover. She pulls him close, strokes his face without lifting her lids. He kisses her, savouring the sweet salutation of her knowable-but-never-forgettable mouth. The intoxicating elixir of alcohol burns his tongue and he knows that she's been thinking of him. The kiss deepens. There are breathy sighs breaking the hush of a witching hour uninhabited by other creatures of the night. He lifts her off the couch, lighter than a child, smiling as she sleepily grumbles and frowns.
They make love in the moonlight, on their bed. The clothes come off slowly, the movements even slower; they've learnt how to be sweet when want rather than need is the order of the day. They sleep together in a mess of garments, underwear and outerwear and silken sheets all tumbled into a nest. Her head is on his gently rising chest. His hand is on her hip, turning her body sideways into an expansive question mark of pale, moon dappled skin that only her lover and the stars can see.
'Lovers are dreamers. They seek with their eyes shut.'
– Anonymous
Fin.