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A SOUL, TOUCHED
The shivering swell of the music, quivering strings and murmuring bass, tickles against the minute creases of our skin, that which lies over yours, insulating you from the probing fingers, soft-tipped and faintly whorled like the ripples caused by a skipping stone over water, and the lips, parted slightly and exuding warmth, rough at their edges like poorly trimmed paper, that drag in lingering greeting, and we sway in time with it, blanketed amongst the air that hums thick and honey-like with vibrato and tremolando.
We are stickily damp with spilt punch, the sugary remnants stretching over us in a faint new membrane, restraining us slightly and simultaneously daring us to stretch out boldly, our fingers like wingtips hugging the wind.
Then, feathery and thready, the hand of a young man unexpectedly flutters into our velveteen grip, and we blindly seek out its fragile form, offering first curious acknowledgement, then, as it skims like an inaudible breath over our crumpled skin, acceptance. We, and you, trace the outline of his fingers, which are a series of elegant, curvaceous silhouettes, arcing in, then out, and which curl loosely against our palms and then slide between the gaps between our fingers in a crosshatch of warm, inquisitive flesh.
The music has stopped, and the air is lighter for its absence, reconsolidating itself around the retreating curls of sound. Manoeuvred by enthusiastic applause, someone takes a step back, pressing against us, and we are overwhelmed by the cascading fabric that strokes us, sensuously scraping us with the sharp teeth of the underside of a seam and the round, stubborn thrust of a button. The softly probing hand that so beautifully slotted against us is gone, now, and we can feel your sigh in the wistful way you steeple your own hands, and us, together as though you are trying to recreate his touch, the neat jigsaw of the moment.
You bring us to your chest momentarily, and through the dense fabric of your gown, brittlely arrogant and aloof with its clinging constellations of jewels and knobby turns of fabric, we can feel the rise and fall of your chest like it is an echo of the maudlin, melancholy string quartet. As you pull us away, and we swoop in a graceful descent to the cool viciousness of your cutlery, which you turn over and over, their metal hips bruising coldly at our skin, we can feel that something within you has changed, and that there is a touch you long for far more than ours.
The young man comes by several times, presenting himself on each occasion with a fleeting proffering of extended fingers that cup against your own, smaller ones, like a protective nest, and with an almost wary dabbing of his lips against our skin, which he does with such diffident, shy a manner that we long to observe his face with our fingertips, and trace his eyelids to confirm as we suspect that his eyes are averted. There is so much that we learn in these tiny moments of whispered greetings and the bashful stroking of thumb against thumb, and we as your safeguard, your blind, initial, temporary layer of protection against such potentialities, realising the ends to which this might lead, try to absorb the touch, deflect it, so that you might not be affected, afflicted so, but your response to this is defiant, as you remove us and place us by your place setting, where we, lost, embrace the smooth porcelain of your bowl and the smoothly textured cloth, slightly shiny from its new dark dye, that covers the table. And you take the hand of a stranger so that you might feel for yourself, emancipated, free, what it is to be touched and to touch in return.
Stephanie Campisi's work can be found in Fantasy Magazine, Shimmer, Farthing, and in various forthcoming anthologies. You can visit her at misapostrophication.blogspot.com.
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