Love is meaningless if it is not tested.
I have always been smitten by the fragmented history of Chicago. A city that, to me, always shines at night with the glorious glowing lights of the Art Deco period, women in beads and flowers and fur while the men dash along the sidewalks holding the brims of their hats as the wind whips their coats. Everything seems slightly faster than usual like the flicker of an old movie reel. While the city has aged and perhaps quelled in pace, the romance is still there buried just under the shiny newness of corporate neon signs and franchised banners. The old Chicago leans from the tops of the highrises in gaudy architectural ornaments, exquisite scrolling stonework and florid swirls of iron beneath lamps and clocks. The cherubic angels supporting rooftop arches peer down with tired eyes at me as I huddle in the wind below.
Underneath the smokescreen of old romance, the cold waits for me like a patient incubus. Distracted and starry-eyed I stepped out like a lamb from the safe, warm haven of the indoors. Our first meeting found me pinned under the powerful fingers that closed over my own in an icy, hot grip I couldn't shake and could never forget, not even as I hustled back indoors for hot tea and a thaw. The cold is so beautiful and so untouchable that I knew I must venture out into the unheated abandonments, walk down by the pier, all to get that shot. I could resist him because I am stronger than that. The sweet warmth of coffeeshops and pubs helped me think with clarity. The challenge of the impossibility was more tantalizing than the warnings uttered to my deaf ears.
I can do it, I'll do it, I said.
Being outside is a different story, the darkened bedroom of child's nightmare. He waits for me in gelid silence while I step outside the door. Camera, batteries, myself in three layers, fleece, parka, and two-layered gloves. Hat, scarf, natch. This shouldn't be hard.
But a single brush with his presence and I am left gripping my hand warmers thinking I have lifelines in my pockets. I gasp and squeeze them, feeling the weak butterfly kiss of feeling back in my fingertips. He pauses, then gently takes my hand in his, infusing my essence with his own until I ache with the fullness. He is graceful but measured and I can never feel him moving around me. My resistance falters under his noiseless, penetrating gaze. Like a blush I become clumsy and languid but the heat within me dies before it can reach my skin.
I put my camera down in surrender and wrap my arms around myself while falling into a corner. The very most I can do is pretend to hide from his pervasive search. He waits to comfort me, unobtrusive and watching for a lowering of my defenses to strike. Shivering and shaking, closing my eyes in defeat and he is there, covering me and taking me into his arms. I can feel him everywhere at once, everywhere and nowhere, inside and out. At my neck, in my bones, teasing my chin and lips and inside my mouth and the palms of my hands and the backs of my knees. Gently nipping, numbing, burning, the pain a delicate line between discomfort and reassurance. I want more, if only to dull whatever feeling that is left.
Befuddled and mesmerized my mind struggles to make sense of the situation. Is he an angel or a demon? Not that it really matters. What's done is done. This isn't love. This was deception, slow murder and an unforgivable tryst. Am I done? Is it over?
No...
As I once more walk the streets of home in an unseasonably warm winter, I still shiver when the tepid breeze tousles my hair. A mere echo of the cold that I once knew, but I can't forget him. Sadistic, forceful, cunning and beautiful, he lingers in me still.
