Of Lovers and Sinners

         The evening sun slowly lifted its golden rays off our naked bodies. It blended the crimson streaks with the purple hues of the fast approaching night. Yet we remained silent and almost unmoving. Both of us were too exhausted to speak a word, too lost in the moment to think of anything to say, too warm to stay so close yet too cold to let each other go and perhaps too scared to reflect on what just happened.

         The seconds swept by. The clock idly ticked away as our labored breathing eventually faded in to even breaths. With each breath I could inhale his musky sweaty fragrance mixed with my Burberry perfume. His fingers slowly circled the skin at the back of my neck. Occasionally when they slid down my spine, they would send small currents through my whole body, and each time my body shivered just a little in response

         I wondered if my fingers had the same effect on him as they explored the curves of his Adam’s apple while my head rested against his bare chest. We had just spent the past hour – or was it more? I simply could not keep track of time – being intimate and touching every inch of each other, easily finding our ways around our bodies as if we had practiced these maneuvers a million times in the past. But this was the first time that we had allowed ourselves to get so close. Yet somehow this fleeting moment of time – this moment where our fingers moved just a little, this moment where the darkness outside failed to hide our merged silhouette, this moment whose warmth engulfed our bodies and my soul, this very moment seemed more intimate than the passionate intimacy offered by the past hour.

         We stayed this way for a long time. Our fragrances continued to mingle, the clock still ticked away while the occasional breeze from the golden dusk window blew at our still warm bodies. Our fingers were still moving, still exploring and my heart was a fluttering mess of butterflies. My heartbeats refused to level out. I was afraid that they would give out my feelings but then I realized that I had just given him everything I could offer. But I still wished that my feelings stayed calm and my heart stopped beating so loudly.

         I wasn’t entirely sure if I was dreaming or if this was real. But as if reading my thoughts, he placed a tender kiss on the wavy burgundy mess on my scalp and then I knew that it was real. It will always be real – even if one day my memory evades it. Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream. It was funny that I thought of this quote by Gibran, for I had an impression that my lover had rendered my mind incapable of thinking. Just as his presence had paralyzed my body, and my muscles simply could not pull away from him.

         As I was lost in this world where only the two of us existed, another shiver joined us – abruptly interrupting the tranquility of the moment. My phone vibrated once, a single text message whose preview read – “Honey, I’ll be home in an hour.”

         It was from my husband Ryan. As my eyes traced his name across the phone, my heart started beating more frantically and a single thought crossed my mind, “Oh Dear God, had I just sinned?”