*This chapter contains a reinterpretation of Afro Blue with lyrics by Oscar Brown, Jr.*
Elegant Whirl—Chapter 10
Linens cool like sea blue. Sun kindles her cocoa hue. Undulating breeze whispers through trees. Pleas of passion like droplets on her lips. Flower in her hair. Tender sighs break like tides against her hips. Plum rich nipples ripple from a breath and burst into air. Shades of delight dance across her face. Touch down on silk gliding to her secluded place. She begins to take flight, slowly slip away to the fingers stroking on her drum. Surrender to the distance beyond her existence. Dream for two becoming one in sum. She spreads like echo from the incandescent mouth testifying to the taste of her sex. Lover's scent evident testament written all over her body in a text freshly derived. Tropical tongue that tangoes with her night richness. Afro blue knuckles clenched between bared teeth to subside the rhapsody building from the whirl of a world of love inside her love. Covetous orbs of lapis lazuli lasciviously surveying her soulful terrain…
Kate's awakened from her slumbering fantasy by the mewling of a nascent winter gust against her window. Her fingers glistening from the subconscious delve into her own whirlpool as she scours the sheets, searching for any trace of Caroline's presence. Discovering, in this morning ritual, that she is the sole inhabitant; the somber inheritor of an unclaimed climax. Why not? Hadn't she learned the dangers in raised expectations? Hadn't she expected to be gutted, once again, as she waited, pacing about her headmistress' sanctum that day, days after they sat in Caroline's garden and promises were made. The long days after long nights wiled away with imaginings of a quiet getaway together somewhere suddenly asphyxiating her with the same old doubt until Caroline appeared in her camel coat, sexy curvatures, and brazen lust for her lips and flesh. Kate remembered feeling breathless and resuscitated all at once; and the deep throbs between her ears and thighs as Caroline blew salacious rumors in her ear. Easily mistaken for a peacock as she puffed with pride in announcing that she had told John about them. Kate had come around again, after several years, hard at work, cultivating an elaborate maze as defense against every offense to her sound mind. Her fears assuaged by the tender look of relief in a spectrum of the kaleidoscope of eyes that could bring Kate to her knees, blushing with sensitivity and sensibility. Assured that Caroline's missing mother was absolutely fine, right as rain, albeit a bit wobbly but with her saltiness still intact, and that Caroline knew exactly where she wanted to be, the two had made a date that was not a dare and Kate was elated with the prospect of Caroline showing up to her door wanting to be let in.
Still laying within the rumpled sheets of her bed, a few paces ahead of the morning's rise, toying the saturated curls of her black thatch as the memory of the deepest kiss she'd ever remembered receiving drove her fingers deeper into her world away, feeding the beast of ache residing in this place with as many fingers as it could consume, as the fingers of her spare hand strummed to soothe an incorrigible nipple yearning to yield to the plies of a chemist's alchemy. She rode it all out with a stride that would give Godiva pride until she eventually collapsed amongst the feathers of her beddings, soaking them in her rebellious sweat, copious tears and carnal extracts, releasing Caroline's name to the gods in sheer abandon.
"You need to stop this McKenzie!" admonishing herself. For, as much as she loved the chemist, she knew that she could not trust that Caroline wouldn't choose all else above her. She had demonstrated one too many times that Kate was optional. All Kate had ever wanted was to be the one chosen, the one exception. Four times she waited to be chosen only to be dejected each time. Each time she waited for Richard to tell her that nothing else mattered more than his love for her only to watch him give up and walk away. Her thoughts now ran to her time with Edwidge. Just when she had accepted an ungratifying life as a spinster, she found herself sat directly opposite a woman with a smashing cleavage, free spirited laugh and eyes glued to Kate. It didn't seem to matter that this woman's fiancé sat next to her with his arm draped over her shoulder. The dinner party was in full swing when she finally made physical contact, taking Kate by the hand and leading her off to a quiet corner of a cavernous study in her parent's elaborate home to kiss her relentlessly. And so it began, Kate disappearing off to London at every chance to be in her embraces and vehement thrusts in perfectly fleeting spaces. They could never be seen in public. It was: "A table for two?" and the sad answer would be: "No, two tables for one." Edwidge never had any intentions on calling off her wedding, but Kate being Kate, did her level best to make her see that neither one of them would be happy if she chose the marriage. This insatiable woman had just assumed that they would continue on in the bewildering game of deception without contrition. So, once again, it was Kate who was not to be chosen as the love for a lifetime.
It was then that Kate realized she was not alone and allowed herself full agency to savor expectancy. The body growing inside of hers was taking its morning stretch and would soon demand feeding. She gently peeled her flesh from the viscous fibers and headed for the shower, somewhat reluctant at the notion of watching it all gather and then just spiral down the drain as if it weren't an indelible stain.
Washed and air-dried and fitted in clingy cottons, with the tingle on her skin further remaining, Kate prepared some of her favorites, making a batter for crepes to be filled with fig jam and the others filled with fluffy eggs and pancetta. She craved spinach with everything, and so she added lightly tossed mandarin and raspberry vinaigrette to an adequate salad for two. Normally, she would have a hand-picked array of musical abstracts to accompany her culinary endeavors, today she preferred to simply enjoy the silence of her docile domicile.
With nothing pressing on the pulse of her lazy Sunday after hopscotching around the King of Sorrow in her head, she decided to listen to the lyrical calibrations of season's winter psalms and headed back to bed, but not before replenishing it with soft, fresh flannels. There was nothing out there in the world more enticing to her than her own invitation as she climbed into it with her books of poetry and baby names, sheet music and the treasured sonogram photo.
The midday nap proved to be spectacular to her ever-changing moods, and the inks on paper seemed to have seeped into her by way of osmosis, but Caroline still lingered in the air like an unfinished symphony.
She needed to talk it through and so she rang up Greg, her invariable familiar.
"Kate! ", he cheerfully acknowledged. She really did love his exuberance. How seamlessly he seemed to ease into a ray of light, impervious to dark shadows.
"Hi'ya. Is this a good time? I was hoping to just…just…have a word…" She had hoped not to alarm him with the strain in her voice.
"Of course," alarm triggered, "absolutely. Is it the baby? Is she okay? When you rang the other day, you two were inseparable. Though you did right to go in, I must say, it gave me some worry that you drove yourself to hospital."
"No, she's oh so lovely, just fine, despite being stuck with me!" Kate let go an honestly hearty laugh before returning to a cheerless topic. "It's…it's…Caroline." She unloaded the gravity of ache.
"What of Caroline? I know that she was there with you at St. Margret's when you got the wonderful news, but you didn't go into much detail…and I didn't want to press…" he now prodded gently.
"She was there, not missing a beat, at my side, I was so petrified sitting in that waiting room in anticipation of hearing that I'd been denied no matter how hard I'd tried. It hadn't escaped me that she let the fact that she'd been counting up the months of my term betray her; like she'd been carrying the enormity in this little gift along with me the whole time." Overcome by the irrationality fear produces, Kate retreated, "She is, after all, a mother herself and that's maybe what made her feel a sort of attachment."
"Kate…it's unlike you to engage contradictions. My point being, amidst all of the disappointments, complexities, practicalities and madness of everyday living…why you, of all people, would confuse a white flag with a red herring. It sounds to me like Caroline came to be with you, in spite of her fears, which seem to be running along the same veins as yours, to ask that they may be conquered together."
In a failed attempt at pacifying gutsful of recriminations and castigations, she belted out, "You make one hell of a negotiator my friend!"
"How have you left things with Caroline?" Greg persuaded in a steady on tone.
"At a standstill…" She thought back on the moments in that frigid darkroom, clutching on to Caroline's hand for comfort, fearing the worst possible outcome, and then the overwhelming release of warmth her body fully yielded to at seeing that little heart pumping. "I let go of her hand…"
"What was that?" her last words barely perceptible.
"I Grabbed hold of Caroline's hand in console and after reassurances that everything happening in that room was perfectly lovely…I let go her hand with apologies for taking it from the start."
"What were you apologizing for?"
"For wanting, needing her there after I had begrudged her another chance. After everything I demanded without her consort. She certainly hadn't asked for any of this, and, in a strange way I wanted to assure her that she needn't feel responsible for me or this baby." Kate began to see the contradictions in this logic. How it left no space or time for Caroline to grow in this world she'd dreamed of sharing with her.
"Kate, you love her too much to carry on with this crosses-to-bear rubbish. Surely, the both of you have paid dearly enough for past offenses. Caroline's made her feelings very clear, now tell her how you feel, telling me isn't doing you an ounce of good when she's the one that should hear it from you."
"Do you remember that occasion where we were invited to a fancy dress and I convinced you to shave your legs and scruff, and don that pleated mini-skirt and Uni sweater?" Kate grinned.
"Point being…?" He still marveled at the way she brought out the woman in him that night!
"Best cheerleader to ever bring it! Pom-poms really do suit you!" Kate fell apart in gales of laughter looking back on that sight. He really would do anything for her.
"Mischievous McKenzie…what feats will she perform next? Oh! I've got one! Give birth to a baby girl hand in hand with the girl of her dreams!"
"I like the sound of that…and now to brush up on the "Queen of Sheba"…
"You've lost me…"
"Celia, Caroline's mum, rang me to ask if I would play the piano at her wedding and stay for the do afterwards. I couldn't say no. She wants to enter to "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba". I presume Caroline will be there, though it may not be the most opportune time to bend her ear with the ravings of a woman in love."
"If it's what you want, you'll find a way… I'm well sure of that."
With everything that had fallen apart and fallen into place the weekend of her last birthday, Kate was not entirely certain how she would react, both mentally and physically, to returning to the Inn that afternoon. But, on the road to Yorkshire, she had made up her mind to look on the bright side of things. She would soon be welcoming a baby girl. He mum was so pleased and proud. Greg was over the moon with the news that Naomi was pregnant. She wished with all of her being to see Caroline in good form for a change, happy, heaven in heels, a maestro in full-blown orchestration. It had been too long since Kate had seen her, really seen her. Too long since Kate had really felt her; felt the unrepentant, irrevocable love Caroline was capable of excavating from the wreckage of her past explorations. The ragtime playlist she'd compiled to accompany her on the journey had given her spirits an added buoyancy.
Kate was in her element, the setting had been elegantly transformed to intimate the occasion, as she sat before a very nice piano, ushering in the celebration of a love long lost, never forgotten and now found.
Celia sparkled with sincerity and Alan was ever so enchanted as they vowed their love and honor of one another. Only once did Kate break the spell to steal a glance at her own fortune's chance.
The affable Ted Buttershaw made her to feel quite at ease during the dinner, he was different from Alan only in the sense that the twinkle in his eyes was not reserved for any one particular woman. As Caroline liltingly delivered her encomium to her mum and new dad, Kate felt a bit selfish for imagining that the words "made in heaven" Caroline uttered were really meant for the two of them and the future of their little girl. Her reverie was soon upstaged by Alan Buttershaw's ingenious serenade!
With the crowd on its feet and the celebration in full swing, Kate thought it best to leave on a high note, to leave all of the things she wanted to say to Caroline for another day. She hadn't anticipated Caroline's snippy reaction or the subsequent surrender to loss in her words and demeanor. "This isn't the time or the place." Kate reasoned with her Cupid's eager archer.
Miles ahead of her back to an existence she'd decidedly shed, gradually furthering the distance from a life impaired…she turned back to claim a love declared.
Thanks to all for the wonderful feedback on this fiction and special thanks to Tangoedup for the lovely support! I surely welcome all feedback on this latest offering.