Black Spotlights (So far)

He climbs down from the stage, the spotlights spilling blinding brightness on his silken black hair. His eyes catch mine.

There is no one else in the auditorium. No one else to hear me scream, I think in a fit of morbidity. That is, if I could scream.

He stands before me. He's dressed all in black; black slacks, black jacket buttoned over a black dress shirt. Black shoes. Black eyes.

For no reason at all, he makes my heart stop. Okay, so maybe that's not entirely true. We are in a boat, a ship, out in the middle of the ocean. All the space and water and possibility around me, it becomes lust. It's scary, to say the least: it's this one overpowering thought that blackens my mind, widens my pupils, shakes my cold, bare hands. It shuts me up. It makes me vulnerable, and desperate, desperately hungry.

And I don't know him. Did I mention that?

I hold out a dead, dried-out flower. Its leaves crackle deafeningly in the empty space around us. It's for him. It's always been for him. The minute it was planted, the first time it was watered, the moment it blinked in the sunlight, the days it bloomed, the second the scissors closed around its stretching green stem, it was for him.

He takes it. I feel sacrificed. What now?, I think.

He was singing for me. Wasn't he? Was there anyone else in the red, plush-filled theater to hear him, drink in his words? I glance around to prove it to myself. No one. Not a soul. What happens next? Where do we go from here?

I smile hesitantly.

He catches my hand in his. "You liked my singing," he says. It's not a question. His voice is startlingly husky, as if he's just recovered from a violent bout of coughing. His singing was like liquid. Like hot wax. It torched me, torched me raw. I prefer his speaking voice, I decide, but only just.

"I do." I turn his hand over. I memorize the calluses on his fingertips, the slight dampness of his palms, the instinctive guitarist's curl of his fingers. I look up at him.

"Come up to my room." This, too, is a statement.

I don't want to seem like a child, but I feel a quick panic sweep my system. "Do you think that's a good idea?" I must have become considerably more pale (if such a thing is even possible), because he tips his head slightly. His hair swings, following him. He looks almost concerned.

Then he grins. I stagger. "I couldn't think of anything I'd like better."

And that's enough for me. I take his proffered arm, and we leave the bowl of the theater linked.

I'm arm in arm with a near stranger, and all I can think about is anyone seeing us. Do we look like the scandal we truly are? Do any of the turning heads suspect? We make our way through the corridors. We pass impeccably dressed men and women, most laughing and probably drunk. He smiles again and shakes his head. Their high spirits are fleeting, I think. Tomorrow they'll all be hung over and cranky. They'll yell at their now-sleeping children and probably pass out in the sun on the lido deck. Maybe they'll get a violent red sunburn. But for now, they're content with their temporary bliss. Their formal wear sways as they walk.

"Let's go outside," he interrupts my thoughts.

We veer through a cluster of people and pull open the heavy wood-framed door. The wind catches my waving red hair, tossing it into his face. He laughs. He pushes the invasive strands back my way, and we go to stand at the railing.

The wooden railing stretches the length of the ship; below it, a series of metal bars that follow. That's all there is between me and a plunge into the freezing tropical ocean. That, and the anchor of a handsome stranger's arm. I gaze into the inky blackness of the sea and the sky. The two meet, somewhere out there, beyond my vision. I can't tell where. Maybe they don't. No one can tell. It's all a stained black canvas. It all looks like one, like the sea is the sky and the sky is the sea, both at the same time. It's overwhelming, thinking that everything is phenomenally bigger than we really think it is. That sometimes, there really is no end in sight.

He leans on the barrier, resting his elbows and clasping his hands together. This means he slides his arm from mine. I copy him. The thin sheer fabric of my dress brushes my legs.

I worry for only a second before I tell him my theories on sea-sky color similarities and the boundlessness of it all. I toss my ideas at him in a smooth, careless voice, as if the whole thing isn't nearly as intimidating as I think it is.

He seems to consider it. Then he nods. "Everything is always bigger than people think it is, and yet smaller. And when you're out in the middle of nowhere, like we are right now, everything falls into perspective. You look out across an ocean and you can't see the sky. That's the moment it hits you. There could be everything out there, or nothing. You simply don't know."

His words should cast a feeling of melancholy on me, but instead I feel electricity stutter through my limbs. I turn to him. The moonlight pales his face.

I'm kissing the moon, I think as my lips find his. I'm kissing the moon. I'm out on the endless ocean, on a ship slicing through waves so pitiful compared to the hard steel structure it's up against, and the moon is within reach.

"Come with me," he whispers against my lips. He takes my hand in his.

Armfirst I am led back inside, where harsh laughter and tinkling-glass noises collide against my head. He takes me through the tunnels of gold that are swarming with people. We reach the elevator; the glass portal seems to be waiting for us. He pushes a button and glances through the wall of glass that looks out over the lobby.

I watch his face. I wonder briefly why he hasn't asked for my name. Maybe he isn't curious after trivial things like that.

The elevator stops. I fleetingly register that his room is on the same floor as my own, but on the opposite side of the ship. He smiles almost shyly at me and pulls a card from his pocket.

A short walk away from the bank of elevators, we stop outside his cabin. I peer down the long corridor with rooms branching off the main hallway. A few people mill between the doors, most still in their evening dress. Marvelously, there's no one paying any mind to us. We could very well be any other couple. But we're not. Not even close to it. Are we even a couple?

The door opens.

His cabin is similar to every other one on this ship, except for the intentions that crowd the doorway as we enter. Orange sheer curtains, orange carpet, sharp globes of light around a long panel of mirror, all are typical of the rooms from the second floor to the seventh. A painting hung on the wall, a couch accented with two throw pillows. A coffee table. More pillows on the orange-blanketed bed than anyone could find purpose for. On the edge of the mattress there is a white towel elephant with two chocolates for eyes. His terry cloth trunk reaches up in a wave.

The door shuts.

I turn back to him. In this light it strikes me how much older he is than I. I stroke his face gently, my palm cupping his cheek. There are lines, lines that criss-cross his face in soft, sloping waves. His eyes are tired, but they flicker with lightness and curiosity and something I recognize as hunger.

Hunger. We're both so hungry. Deeply hungry. Hungry for life, for flesh, for substance not in calories but in knowledge.

He reaches for me. He fills me, first with his mouth, then his hands, both unexpectedly full of promise. He pulls me, he pushes me, in rhythm with the feeble waves against the bow of the ship.

A short gasp escapes my lips as I fall backward on the cushy bed. I breathe, but barely. He presses against me. His black eyes glitter.

The thin fabric of my silvery dress has abandoned all shyness; its hem rests mock-innocently on the top of my thigh. He notices. His palms slide against my skin, and I am briefly grateful that I shaved before coming to watch him sing.

When he kisses me again, I feel myself go under. I spin as if I'm trapped underwater. I feel dizzy and new and untamed. I curl outward at his touch.

His breath is like cardamom and aged strawberries. It washes over me with the force of a swirling snowfall. His hands sweep the tundra of my shoulders, brushing away the ethereal obstruction of my dress.

When his slender fingers find me I stop thinking. It's too intense, this passion born of childish lust that makes girls get up at midnight to chase after dreams, that makes men twice her age and probably older take on characteristics of soap opera stars. It's too intense, too overwhelming to let paltry things like mental functions interfere.

My heart pulses in my throat. Let nothing ever end this, I think. If I ever may be granted a wish, please let this be it.

There's a soft thunk as the terry-cloth elephant falls to the floor. His chocolate eyes roll beneath the bed. No witnesses now, I think. No one need ever know.

I kiss him and think, truly, madly, deeply, because only adverbs could describe me now. My body begs for him in the way I thought only trashy romance novel heroines' did. This is no romance, though; this is a disaster area, and it feels perfect.

I writhe backwards on the bed. My dress tears, only a little, but enough so that he notices. He pulls the sheath of fabric over my head, gently but purposefully, and my hair spills over the covers.

"Your shirt," I say. It's only fair.

I reach for the buttons of his jacket, fumbling only a little. I toss it aside and move on to his shirt, flipping back the sides as I open them. His skin is impossibly soft against my palms, damp, the lightest tan of tans. Mercy.

When I look up at him his eyes are clouded over like an unforecasted rain. There's a thick wanting behind his dark irises; it stretches from his pupils to his very core. I can see it, feel it. I reach for him.

Our meeting was foreplay. There's no need for any playing around now, discovering each other's dips and curves and freckles. There's no need at all. Besides, that's not what we're here for, is it?

I chance another look into his eyes and I know. It's self-satisfaction we're after. A filling-up of a bottomless desperation. An end to our collective hunger.

I unzip his pants.