Yes, it is.
I wrote it.
Here is the first short story in it. I made a little film doing a partial reading yesterday.
xxoo!
Literary Erotica. I write that on purpose. Make Love not War.
Here is that story…
Gardenias
Your lips were like that, once. They held all the temptation of sugar and swirl, fragrant, spinning out white pinwheels, words, and my eyes were closed then, so soft your lips were against my neck, so soft and melting like my heart in the sweetness. In the dark. I miss it.
You, moving at the back of my neck. Sudden warmth.
My grandmother’s dresser, her valises, passports. Fleurs De Rocaille, Chanel No. 5. My mother, her surround of Shalimar like a veil. What does it mean to be a woman?
He says to me, “You are mysteries, and this is the allure.”
Parfum
“I need to hear more,” I tell him. But I never say it aloud, because I can’t.
I want to say something to you that starts and ends in a fragranced way. Like sugar on the tongue. Something that is white as this sugared flower I press to my lips, press along the surface of my skin, thinking about the way it is with you. All I have to do is listen. Your voice. I’ve never heard one like it. I hear something inside it that reminds me of a place.
These were Billie Holiday’s flowers. Mine too, sometimes. I know things about blue moons, like she did. Things about love where the music from that fragrance slides like the moon across the sky. Lustered pearl.
In his arms. The slide of him, his skin. Melting moonlight. Eyes closed. Come.
He says, “You always smell so wonderful.”
This is how you can find me in the dark. Because he never looks. Vesper, feminine, tapered flame, the white of votives at the altar, a scented wind passing across the sea. A tiny charm that dangled from a bracelet and got lost under starlight. A breeze tripping through a white linen chemise that flows like water, handkerchief linen, translucent, transparent. But he never sees. To be seen is to be alive. To be known is to become real. Touch me.
Billie’s flowers. She wore them in her hair bravely, as men came and went.
It’s always like that, isn’t it?
Some women inherit jazz. It runs in them like honey, slow and nebulous. A little like love. You whisper it.
Your nose finds the flower.
He understands the song I sing. It inhabits a different universe. Fleurs De Rocaille, Shalimar, the legacy I’ve been handed, the sex between my thighs. His tongue circles me, making pinwheels. Sugar spins. Gardenia. White, the tropicality of paradise. Our bed, this universe.
I dream of carousels, the horses moving, up and down riding, painted horses, blowing kisses, colored carnivals. I’m in love again. (If only I could believe it) The world grows bright and shimmering, suddenly. My valise, will you carry it? The world grows round with you, succulent, and I’m a child on a carousel, greedily spinning, and it’s pinwheels, pinwheels, pinwheels… spinning into his arms. Spinning. (Don’t make me lie).
My things for traveling. (I’ve gathered them, he doesn’t understand). Chanel. Number 5. Why did they choose that? Five inhabits an odd symbolism.
Pour moi, Gardenia.
My grandmother’s jewelry on the dresser. It was so tall and I was so little wanting to try it on. Brooches, diamond pins, tiny butterflies from another time of pillbox hats and lipstick when women dressed to dance.
“What does it mean to be a woman?” Breathe me.
Your lips like jazz along my skin. The promise of your kisses, tiny little riffs in the dark. For you, gardenias. For you, Ibrahim Ferrer.
Dos gardenias para ti.
Ici.
This little box in my hands like love, newfound. White. Sans tristesse. These places on my body, the curves along the thigh, the breasts, the back and its subtle bones. Your nose traveling enchanted landscapes. Moonrise. (I’ll think about that in the darkness).
The flower, embossed, is elegant.
Container of promises, box of Billie crooning. I’m black inside, like her. Or blue. I met those men she knew. And now I’ve met you. My finger traces the flower on the box tenderly. A solitary white gardenia (I remember the time I wore Fracas). It’s impossible to find it now. Perhaps these things and sentiments died in the 1920’s. Memory boxes, moonlit casings. (Your fingers roam the landscape of my nipples). Softness.
Music. Sans tristesse. Your lips traveling. I’ll just close my eyes. I’ll close my eyes into white. Into the luminescent light of the sky over Paris. This little box in my hands. This little embossed gardenia. Will you emboss me? Draw forth nacre?
Ici, peut-être ici. Sans tristesse.
White flowers move over me as we descend, sliding, your breath at my ear filling me with a kind of nostalgic longing. (In an alternate universe).
Closed eyes, eyes closed softly. Your finger tips recalling Josephine Baker, Django Reinhardt.
Nuages.
Paris, 1930. The light so brilliant against my eyes, the clouds of white above the rooftops. A garret room, inhabited. Billie Holiday is singing, moaning low against my ear, your fingers sliding, softly, softly, barely a trace. You infuse me with light.
His tongue, his tongue, Where will it go? What will it do? What will he whisper?
In my heart, looking out. Open eyes over the city. My lids are heavy, the lashes beat against themselves. I don’t want to see, if you aren’t there. Something you are doing, something touches, and the current flashes brilliance, small spasms, starry and full of trickery, crossing themselves at odds along the surface of my skin. An opening sensation.
You’ve made me so wet. Just the imagination of your lips against me, the wet brush of an imagined tongue, my flower, maddeningly opening. Valises, passports, trunks, postcards, traveling, your hand at rest on my thigh, the sky opening, pouring clouds into the wind. (A wind that blows from Cuba, liltingly). White flowers on the sea, twirling.
Carnivals and carousels, and love and white gardenias.
The pinwheels careening in my mind.
Chanel. Gardenia. For you.
Ici. Shangri-La.
Cet voyage entre nous, pas de ce monde.
~
xxoo!
from Valentine
go spend $5.99 on the steamiest book you ever read!
VALENTINE BONNAIRE - WRITER 