You never answered about the ribbons... you pilfered them away. How many times I had to answer for them... grandmother always asked why my hair was unloosed, and always because of you and always after coming back from the orchard. God that orchard... those warm summers when i could just wear my summer slip and nothing else and you in your tennis whites all the time it seemed and your kisses always tasted of white wine. I remember when you first kissed me... i was so scared. I had thought about it so much, what that kiss would be like, and figured it would be like an aria - either O Mio Babino Caro or La Wally. It had to be one of the two, i figured, but when it did happen it was neither. It was actually more like Bach, solo cello in G. Major, just wandering and searching and almost unending and i remember not knowing what to do but following the new language of your tongue and taking you into me and how you offered first the tip of your tongue and i accepted it just i had, earlier that day, accepted a communion wafer.I thought of that when i took the tip of your tongue. You still tasted faintly of port wine - blood of christ - we had been forgiven all of our sins and had left fully blessed and now here we were, undressed of Sunday best - in the orchard, under what had become our pear tree, with your hand always laced with mine and our mouths finally touching and god, my heart beat so fast then.
You were do gentle David. It's funny how much we have done and how now we go backwards. We have to. Things are different. We knew they would be. But we always said we would find a way around it and we are. There we were again in that coffee shop on Madison and 71st or that other on Bleeker, which you prefer, at the table by the window, drinking that scented tea and eating spoonfuls of honey (always honey, always honey between us), our feet gently touching, both of us leaning in, entering arm-in-arm. God, if they (mine-yours) had been with ... we would never. We are different with them, which is how we know then...
When i came last time... your feet... it's been so long since i saw them just bare. I took off my tights it was so hot in your apartment and we both had our feet resting on the coffee table and our feet so much the same, like our hands, bony and knuckled and white and fine. At the table, we tried so hard to be good, but you sat next to me anyway and i felt your foot gently rest against mine... i think it's been years since that... just that contact... my god. I wanted so much more...
your wife... i told her, after i went and saw the blood there, i asked her discreetly and knowingly she announced to all how i was bleeding, she not being Jewish (and not knowing me part) thought, knew, that a "good" Jew would not touch a bleeding woman until she had been to the Mikvah... How wretched and bitchy of her to try and humiliate me that way. I expected some jealousy but this was above and beyond. You knew it too. You went out of your way to touch me then. You touched my hand. And when i left, you held me and kissed both cheeks, squeezed my hand and walked me down the hallway, leading me.
And all the next day, me still bleeding, you did not stop bumping into me. It never bothered you anyway. It was just her bitchy way. Maybe you stay away from her. I still don't know how you wound up with her anyway. She never was or is good enough, but then, i'd say that of anyone likely. Nobody but me is good enough for you and likewise. Don't you find it funny that in our faith, first cousins can marry?
Why didn't we then? By our religious law we could have... our family already practically wrote us off. But we didn't because we're too proper and too educated and too too for that. But we're not too too for this are we? Me with my well-appointed career and husband and you with yours and the crossover that exists, so our paths cross and you and i find yet more ways...
but that's a derail... where are my ribbons! do you still have them?
oh, and about the rose hip i squeezed into your palm last time... you deserved the prick of it. I always dethorned them for you - a token, part of our language - but this time, you hurt me David. You rewrote that whole two days out of some stupid guilt. I pressed that hard into your soft palm, and it stung mine as well, and then i smacked you and you said, "That really hurt" and your wife looked stunned. I laughed. "It was supposed to," i said... ooops... i should not have said so. I let something slide. She knew then we'd had a fight.
We are supposed to be 'normal' cousins. Here we can be, and when alone we can be... and because of the distance we create this... and because email is not safe, then this (just don't forget to log out for chrissakes) or leave the screen up - which is the sort of thing you would do - me too actually -
where are my ribbons! next time i see you, can we try to kiss? do you think we could? i'm scared, but not too scared to try again... are you? we used to... i don't know anymore. So much at stake, but i hate to live with regret and if we don't, i know i'll regret it...
bring me one ribbon back and i'll take it as a sign.
ta cousine.
