Four Nights

The first night I arrived on my own. Streets were darkening, yet kept alive by lights in café’s and couples walking arm in arm. The driver carried my forlorn bag into a bright, over ornate foyer. Preliminaries over, I checked into a room that at first glance was sultry to my eyes. I sat on the bed and, taking out my red not pad, doodled lovers’ scribbles and the vagaries of life. I drank one glass of heavy merlot, and as tiredness crept I slept alone beneath covers of tightly cocooned childhood. Breakfast was solitary, as families chattered. I held my cup between two hands indulging myself in wonderings. He would arrive by lunchtime and so I placed myself behind ferns in an over-panelled side room. It’s strange people watching, their lives re-enacted like a drawing room drama. I watched, and he arrived as nervously as I, love on foreign soils without familiarity of lies. Beneath rose glow we made love, then rose and explored, tasted food, drank wine Copious sensations as if before we had only fasted. W indulged in the pleasures of opulent enjoyment where we are strangers and not conformed by rules. The remaining nights we looked into each other’s eyes and on the fourth, I left alone. ©EMG05