The Scent of Your Breath

Six

His eyes were unsteady; they looked as though they were drenched with tears, they looked stunned, fragile, malleable. And yet they raped, they crushed, they pleaded, they reproached.

The parked car in a country lane at the feet of Etna, the rain that had finally stopped crashing against the windshield, the smell of rotten earth, my panties and stockings scattered around inside the car, my hair heavy with damp, his penetrating breath, and the smell of his aftershave. The tissues on top of the glove compartment, the purple, yellow, and red colors of the flowers, the trucks passing behind our heads, the bee convulsively striking the window. Sweat, saliva, and humors, the stench of damp fabric, the clink of his belt, the sun timidly reappearing, passion, haste, anxiety, jealousy, impotence, inconsistency, illusion, lies, indifference to the point of grief.

Everything was there, everything but love.