A Matter of Love in da Bronx (40 page)

Here's one:

Is it that I could love you too much?

If I asked you, what would you say? We may start with 'What nonsense!' and continue to that highest degree. So would I. There are no qualifiers in any possible estimation of my adoration of you. Our love is the star which will shine past being. We do not speak, therefore, of capacity. We do speak of Being. Existing. The fact: It is. Our love is. Its limitlessness is exceeded only to the extent of our feeling or understanding. It is more magnificent than anything in our universe. Simple.

Here's another:

Is it that I could love you too little?

Consummate absurdity! I first said.

Then, I thought. My response could be shy of the royal essence you command in being pretty, in being charming, in being reserved, in being so many things in being you. True, you bedazzle this plebeian, but may I not have courtly thoughts, and wonders and doings? Certainly. First, 'too little' implies a matter of degree of which there is none in my love for you. And next, even if it were decreed that there might be too little, I would welcome that! Indeed! ...only so I may love you more! In either case, how could so much fortune be mine?

Here's another:

Is it that I could love you not at all?

Not at all. Our bedazzlement comes through predestination. There is no appeal from so great a power.

Amen.

One thing we talked about today that I've thought about concerns the demands put on me by my family to meet what they considered was their responsibility. I could've done and become any number of personages: doctor, lawyer, soldier, upholsterer, cook... One thing I'm absolutely certain I would've done is to have met you, and the one thing I'm not certain about is whether or not I would've been as prepared, as ready, as needful meeting you then as I was now. This is what was left up to us. We met. Impeccable was our timing.

And so was Louisa's mother!

Summarily she summoned you both denying us not a stolen moment more!

Kiss! Not a kiss today! What nefarious schemer escaped hell conceiving such torture? That we should have been so close and kept so far apart this morning deserves a Dies Irae; that we were under the sun's ciborium this afternoon without a caress, a kiss may seem holy to the gods, but fiendish to me! There is a purpose in this, though. To be sure. It has precipitated in me a desire that will be perfected the next time I see you, or you will come see where I cold lie. To kiss you. No. Not just to kiss you. But, to kiss you: To start in the Battery and take us to Bronx Park! And from hours early to daylight dark. I will get to know all there is for this lover to know about your whole and entire kiss, enough to fill volumes, to deliver dissertations--at least! For as much as there is to say about this one day's kiss!

How did we not let us kiss?

We trust each other.

We respect each other.

And we talk too much.

You'll be reading this tomorrow night. I'll find a way to get it to you. In the meantime, I'm planning a dazzlement, and I hope all this will be ancient history, surplanted with some marvelous doings of the day.

Some say love is fantastic.

I don't know fantastic, I know you.

 

Love is Mary.

O'erflood of my heart.

Joy. Warmth. Tenderness.

Life. I know your purpose.

Now.

That I love you.

 

I am,

 

Your Sam

Sunday evening

 

My most precious love, Sam:

 

What mystery! To share all that I have, then to find I have more than that with which I started! How marvelous is this love! Or, my love, is it only you? Would it be this way with someone other? Though I may wonder about that it's really irrelevant, isn't it? Does it matter as long as there is unity in our supreme trinity: you, me and love? Minus one minus life.

 

How is this wondrousness come to me? Somehow I feel I don't deserve the marvel. I must confess I used to be envious when I've heard the words: --Oh! Mary! I'm in love! Or, when I saw a pair announce strictly by their air that they were lovers. Or, even love's simulation on camera; read from a page; heard on a tape. I'm quite aware at this moment, real or imaginative, none compare to this love of ours. How it has completely changed my world, though everything else remains the same. My routine remains static day by day in every way. I see the same people, I perform the same tasks, I function perfunctorily at the same humdrum chores. Yet, there is a rainbow that runs through my heart and mind! As if the showers of my life have gone behind me with only eloquent sun before me translating splendor and exuberance, and reverence, and poetry, and concupiscence, and a library of dictums into one word, one thought, one action: Love! Love! Love! No subtle seasoning is this to my world. All is the same and all different. I think of you every waking hour, dream of you when darkness falls for how better can I consider the possessor of my soul? And if anticipation heightens the experience how volatile will be our consummation? Especially after a day like today! Having you before me and not a sliver of a delicious taste of you. Not a clasp, not the slightest slip of sensation from finger to flesh. Then, I thought, incorrectly, we would make up tomorrow for what we missed today. But that can't be, I realized. Gone leaves no vacancies for tomorrow. Gone cannot expand or add a moment more to any day. What fills the moments are so designed: no recall, no redo, no erasure. Yet, how together we were! How the scend and sound of you pulsed the core of my being. How exquisite! How perfectly exquisite! I feel you still! Ah! My dearest! You are an awakening! How the world is more vibrant! I see colors, and hear sounds, and take scents, and feel sensations as I have never, ever done before! I sift from my dream of you as I awake to wonder if I will have this love with me for the day, and before I part my lashes I know! I know! The welling in my bosom swells to the room, roseate, exultant, inspiring! Together we are. How I want to be in you as you are in me! And you are in me. I want you in every way. When I think of that I wonder if it's true that it's better to be on the road than to have arrived. Now I can only dream of what the sensations will be when you kiss me passionately, deeply, knowing we are completely free to pursue our love beyond the pale. What electric comes when you take my nipple to your mouth, feel my naked flesh turn hot under your hand, and sense my tight coiling tension straining for release? If such a moment affects us both the same way, my Heavens! What sensibilities remain to record on some super psychic Richter Scale the explosions that surely must take place? And they say it can be repeated. That it can be done again and again and again! In any variety of ways, on any number of stratospheres. Oh! Let`s love each other fully! You in me, me in you, us in each other, and if there is more let us have it to discover. I'm learning so many wonderful things about myself, Dearest Sweetheart, because of you; I am on tenterhooks to know more of you; now! Imagine how high soars my speculation on what there is for us together.

After today, I want to know when that will be. To be torn apart so swiftly with unfair and faint goodbye. How angry I am with myself for not responding to the urge--Oh! How many thousands of times!--to clutch your handsome face and kiss and kiss you hard. With sweetness just one would've filled my day. And if I had to chose to see you and no kiss...Ah! Which? Either way the enravishing ecstasy of pain. I saw your eyes hard on my lips I wondered where you felt them to you. No. I knew. I wanted them there, too.

Something that troubles me much: More than missed kisses...when do I see you again? In the haste and fluster with which we left the park, neither you nor I gave one dot to the morrow. Yes, we will see each other; I'm sure, but when and where; and for how long...? Ah! The last is most intriguing! I warn you, no matter where or when I claim your lips--at least--to preclude sorrow on the morrow! Premeditation
in extremis.
I will have my kiss! Deny me at your peril!

There are many thoughts that fill my mind of you. Of them, whether simple or complex, bring an excitement. How I enjoy the thought of being seen together. I am so proud of you. There is a meaningfulness that comes with pursing even the smallest of pleasures when it's done with someone of importance in one's life; the more important, the more satisfying. I suppose the most important person inherently commands a serious commitment, a challenge of responsibility, a satisfaction of attainment. Yes, it must be pride that glows inside me when with you I see how adroitly, with great charm; you consider all who enter your circle. And I know why. I've heard people tell me how they like animals, or a hobby, or a sport. I've never heard anyone say,--Me? I love people! You love people! You prove it in the affection, and tenderness and respect you present to me. How I love you for all that. Then, I bask in the thought of being committed to each other. Of you leaving me for the day to peruse a man's other needs, then, returning again to me. Of making all sorts of plans for the future. Most unashamedly I must tell you what I think of most is making love with you. As hard as I try, I can't imagine what it must be like. I know neither the beginning, the ending, nor anything in between. I can't wait for you to teach me. What an exciting world to explore. Want to know what mystifies me much? What do I expect of you? And you, what is it you expect of me? How disappointed if you have in mind what I can't give: avalanches, rocketbursts, nuclear fission. Be sure I'll try. But when?

There is some slight trepidation, but with your news of today I grow stronger in my resolve to make a home of my own. How fascinating a prospect! I never dared to think of it before! But how majestic it must be to share a space only with one's own will and whim! To do things, or not do things! As one damn pleases! What a prospect! Such thoughts only make me more aware of how stultifyingly restrictive is the world I now endure. How painful! I hate it! I shall move out! Though it sounds precipitous, I believe it's been in my mind for too many years. How grateful to you I am to help me add this one more positive step to my once miasmic world. Some clothes, my books and classical tapes my total impedementa. Guilt feelings, sorrows and regrets I leave behind. Perhaps I reproach myself too harshly for permitting me to allow what I have done to myself concerning my parents.

Rather, from such cold and chilling thoughts I turn to the heat of our passions. How could that be never lying together bathed in ardor and desire? Because your image comes before me, then, in minute reflections I know the very touch and stroke of you, your love cupping my heart, your breath stirring my soul, and together our sensations suspended in a superstratospheric ecstasy. Sir? In my lifetime, I have heard of a miracle or two, intoned by priests for priestly reasons, but never have I seen one, or had one occur next door, so let's not rely on so scarce an item to see an occurrence of such vast importance and desire come to us. Between the two of us, I'm certain a way will be found. Arrange it.

In that line, I think of all the sweethearts in the world who confronted misfortune, tears flooding their vessels of love, and when asked of their affair, I picture them all with the same smile, one that says, "Whatever else, I've been loved."

Ah! That I am! I want everything! I pray no inexorable and jealous spirit steals what is meant to be ours. We must make it happen, my love, we must hold ourselves responsible to seek out so beautiful an affection as exists between us, and strengthen it with kisses, embraces, touchings, visions, hearing, smelling, lovemaking, being; Lord! Being us! If we don't do this how great a sin we create, how vast a void fills our lives. How grievous and unforgiving it rests on us.

My dearest, I know it will take more than words to have our next meeting culminate in the exquisiteness we desire. Touch me, my darling, touch me in the way no other has or ever will. Until I find you there, I will dream endlessly of the rapture waiting for us.

Know how consuming and hot this fire of love burns for you. I hold tenderly, embracing your heart with my most joyous love until I find myself with you again. Forever yours,

Mary

THE DARK EMBRASURE, a few doors down from the photographer's studio at nightfallen Eden Farms, provided Sam and Mary with a degree of seclusion that allowed them to indulge in the freedom to enjoy somewhat uninhibited their togetherness. From the time they got off the subway train, they had little time to spare to meet Louisa. At first, they stopped in a doorway up much further, but the activity of late commuters allowed them no more than handholding. Quite casually they strolled, she holding his arm tight to her. They were directly opposite the porno movie house. --Don't you wish we could be someplace private where we could just plain indulge ourselves in our desire to physically devour each other--to touch, to hold, to embrace, to kiss, to lick, to bite, to invade...?

--No.

--No!

--No. I've not been trained in self-resusitation from cardiac arrest.

--Oh! Sam. This is terrible! I want to kiss you. Lord! Talk to me! Tell me something! Distract me! Express some worldly advice!

--You mean, such as Polonius advises his son, Laertes?

--Okay, just keep my mind off your...penis.

--You realize, such advice comes from one's own experience; from what actions affected his choices and paths. I shall try to be universal. I'll try to impart aphorisms I have thought about, and devised for myself. Simple enough, I think. First, I think I'd say to be as smart as you can be; next, be as happy as you can be; and last, be as courageous as you can be. You know something? They all come from what I wish I did when I was younger. Course, I know too much of what's gone on, and what's directed my life; so, it's really unfair to be able to look back and give advice. If I could've been as smart as I might have been, I know now, I would've been happier; and certainly, what came about came about because I lacked courage--not because I wasn't brave, but because my loyalty, my emotions played too big a role. And, I think, if I was smart, and decided to make myself happy, and took the chance to do it...