2004-12-29

Knights and Squires

"I got your Christmas card today," he tells me.

"It's a shame it's too late. That's what you get for living all the way in Canada," I tell him.

He begins to laugh but pauses, and I hear him groan slightly on the other end of the line.

"Something wrong?" I ask.

"It's that toothache I was telling you about--I'm taking pain killers. Anyway, your card was wonderful...but you simply couldn't send it without adding a dose of sarcasm, couldn't you my sweet?"

"You know me too well," I say, as I turn to lay flat on my stomach, running my hand over one of the oak pillars in my bed.

"What you sent me to read yesterday--that City of Adonis--it was quite good."

"Honestly? You enjoyed it?"

"Yes. It left me with an overwhelming eeriness inside. I kept wondering what it all meant."

"I will explain it all to you one night."

"I'm happy that you're writing. That passion and sense of...value you possess are so foreign to me."

"I understand, my love. But this is how I see my life...what's the most important thing in your life?"

He pauses for a moment, thinking.

"You," he says.

"That answer has made such an impact on my heart...as if a stake had been driven through all of a sudden. But painless...something joyful, in fact."

"Your e-mail made me blush yesterday."

"How so?"

"You described our first kiss. I was nervous that time, and you were talking about chemistry and all the words kept whirring past my head and I couldn't pay attention to one thing, save the elegant movement of your lips. And you knew I was going to do it, because you paused and looked into my eyes and mumbled something before I leaned in to kiss you."

"And you apologized afterwards, telling me that you had to do it."

"Indeed; I couldn't sustain myself any longer...I wanted to grab you and kiss you passionately, even if the whole world was watching."

"I am in love with a Canadian boy."

"I am in love a Cuban and Chinese girl...ah, my ultimate communist mix. Do you have any idea how erotic that is?"

"I can only imagine."

"You've a very nice, begging-to-be-grabbed ass, by the way."

"Al!"

"Sorry. It's seems as though there's one particular part of my body the pain-killers have yet to numb."

"Thank you."

"For?"

"For making the ghost go away."

He pauses--almost confused--then catches on: "You're welcome, beautiful."

And the brave knight Alastair came one day upon the castle, and made the ghost go away.

aeka at 7:45 p.m.