The two of us are kneeling naked in front of our window as a summer storm breaks, knees itchy from cheap carpeting. Damp skinned after average sex, we hold hands as thunder claps and we bristle against the sudden plummet in temperature. We huddle closer as steam gives way to cold ass-cheeks and the familiar gives way to a vulnerability that comes with being naked before the parting of the sky. Forces beyond our control move my goose bumps closer to your goose bumps, and we’re aroused again. It reminds me of a scene I think I remember in the movie Little Children where Kate Winslet and Chris-what’s-his-name are enjoying this same post-coital phenomenon. But we did it first. This is how I remember it and how it comes back to me 20 years later as I lay with someone else, his fingers sliding inside of me with above average skill. I stare out my window at the tree with the orange flowers whose species I can’t recall. A crazy looking yellow bird with black wings hovers like a humming bird in the branches on another summer afternoon. The sun hurts my eyes making the colors pop like splotches of fluorescent paint. Sort of like when that blond guy, in the movie Pleasantville, notices a red rose in his black-and-white world after he has sex with Reese Witherspoon. I’m hoping to cement this moment, as I have cemented our rain moment by focusing my attention on a godly enchantment overhead and the recurring events that happen outside windows, to ground my body in an ecstatic return that will always be more reliable than memory.
