Only You

dès vu

Cate drives on our way to Hanover. We stop once or twice to look at small county fairs on the road; Cate buys us candied apples and we sweeten each other's lips behind some tents on the parking lot. 

The day is bright and clear. I am acutely aware only of Cate's touch, the way her pale hair dances in the wind, her rich voice never changing its languid tone. And I am filled with pride whenever I see people turn to stare at her beauty, as if awestruck, because they can only look and wonder how a person could look so heavenly, but I can see the faint cracks in her marble skin and love her anyway. 

The sun is setting by the time Cate pulls up at a motel. The warm neon light is draped over her face like a curtain. "Think we'll be alright here?" She asks. 

"We're alright anywhere."  

The day crashes slowly back to me as we step into our room. Cate had checked in for a single bed. I stand by the door, watching her brush her hair by the window, her coat on the bed. She sees me watching and winks. A thousand moments pass by like idle clouds before us, they spill into this room, with the thin curtains and the lights of the highway flashing over the walls and the silent old television in the corner. 

When I come out of the shower, Cate is sitting at the edge of the bed, talking on the phone with someone. I can tell immediately by her tone that it's her daughter. I rub the towel absently through my damp hair, watching the dark strands fly before my eyes as the water droplets fall off like tears.

"...Mommy's not coming home just yet, darling," Cate says. "No, not yet...I'm on a trip. Yes, a very important trip."

I smile. 

"Yes, of course I'll send you presents...you must be very, very good to grandma and grandpa, Okay? Promise?...Okay, I love you Ruby...go to bed now, it's late."

"Important trip?" I say teasingly as she hangs up and picks up her towel.

She taps my nose as she passes by. I lie back and let my head sink into the pillow, listening to the shower water turn on with a screech in the shower and the occasional zoom of a car on the highway. I have never been more content in my life.

I doze off, or maybe I just drifted into a hazy state, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, because that's where this place is, with Cate. But my mind spins into a point again when I feel Cate lower herself into bed beside me, her wet yellow hair smelling sweet from the shampoo, cigarette smoke curling toward the ceiling above us. And all the lengths of our bodies touch perfectly, as if we are two pieces of a great jigsaw puzzle designed especially and only for each other. She opens her mouth and the fierce bittersweet smoke billows onto my tongue. 

And then I close my eyes and my existence melts away, I am soft clay at Cate's fingertips, I am a light particle that dances around her like a halo. Her fingers curl over my neck as she kisses me. My hands press onto the ridges of her spine. I tremble like a mortal kneeling at a goddess's shrine. She is the hurricane. She is my demise and salvation. She is everything that exists, the reality of everything. My mind explodes into a million stars and their constellations spell Cate's name over and over. 

A shudder goes through me as she pulls off my shirt, as I see her robe fall from her shoulders, as we touch and touch like starved creatures hidden by time. And I hear a low growl I've never heard before, rumbling in her neck as she is pressed against me, and a vision of a stunning grey wolf comes before me; I am her moon. She devours me, and I envelope her in my icy fire. Her tongue leaves a trail of gold on my skin. 

I let her inside me. I drink her name. My arms are wrapped around her neck as if I hold onto her to keep from drowning. A lifeline. 

"Dès vu," Cate whispers. The shafts of light from outside makes her skin glow a faint purple. 

"Hm?" 

She kisses me lightly on the forehead, then peppers more kisses all over my neck and shoulders, like spring rain. "Dès vu," she repeats softly. "A moment I'll never forget."

I smile into her hair. "Dès vu," I say, tasting the foreign words on my lips. "It's us."