3WW CCLIII, "Movements"

The words over at Three WordWednesday are drench, immune and radiate.

Movements

We pulled the mattress off the bed, the expensive one that was purchased in a previous life with a previous partner, and drug in into the backyard through French doors. The weather had turned cool and the dew from the grass drenched our feet as we maneuvered the bulk of cloth, springs, wood onto the lawn.

We removed a good section of sod from the manicured green, dug a hole and lined it with river rock we found piled in an empty lot in a newly-growing subdivision. We pulled up to the lot in her silver Audi, popped the trunk and started dumping rocks into the pristine trunk, feeling giddy and a little suspect, hoping all at once that people wouldn’t call the cops on us – and laughing if they did.

Sticks were stacked carefully into a pyramid shape around wads of crumpled newspapers. One wooden kitchen match and the structure burst into life and light, golds and oranges. We piled on the kindling, each of us in huge handfuls, then chunks of oak pilfered from a neighbor’s woodpile. Each new batch of fuel steered flames toward the sky, the blue growing increasingly dark as dusk began to exert itself. The light threw cheer in a wide circle. The heat radiated. She bounced on the bed, legs locked Indian-style. She smiled, wrinkled her nose.

Every once and again, the breeze blew embers onto the bare mattress, singing tiny pin-pricks into the expensive pillowtop. Each time, she raised her eyebrows, Groucho Marx-style and I laughed toward the sky, braced on outstretched arms.

The fire died to embers and still we sat, Indian-style, draped by a single comforter. We sipped good Tequila out of Mason jars, as most of the glassware was already packed up in dung-colored cardboard boxes. Crickets chirped.

We said not a word.

Our hands intertwined. Darkness came and the sky filled with stars. We sank into the bed in embrace. She removed my shirt and I wriggled off her shorts, the comforter undulating with our maneuvers.

We were not immune. Time was our adversary now.