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"Shelter my soul, O my love! My soul is bent low with the pain And the burden of love, like the grace Of a flower that is smitten with rain: O shelter my soul from thy face!"
I grin at Robert, who is grinning back. We walk through the streets of a French town. Each yellow street light washes him golden. He is already golden of skin and hair. His skin is tan from our time at the beach. The light washes him further, he is a divine image.
"You don't do it right," he laughs. Our walking slows as he leans into me, eyes on the book in my hands, reading the stanza under his breath. He hums when he's done and runs ahead of me. Few people scatter the sidewalks. Robert throws his arms up and spins to face me. He is walking backwards. He doesn't glance to his feet nor does he stumble. He is gliding on clouds. "Shelter my soul, O my love!" he booms, speaking in an exaggerated accent. "My soul is bent low with the pain. And the burden of love, like the grace of a flower that is smitten with rain." When the space is shortened between us by mere feet he leaps and kneels in front of me, arms hugging my legs and eyes pleading with mine. "O shelter my soul from thy face!"
He buries his face in my stomach. French coos and giggles fill my ears. I laugh, hands diving deep in the tender soft sea of his curls. He gazes up at me, that smile still there.
"That's how you do it." He stands and takes my face in those large delicate hands. Our foreheads touch. He half smiles, mouth uneven under his blonde sorcerer's mustache. My fingers long to graze the golden hair under his lips. "Sweet girl," he murmurs against my lips. We forget we are lost and cannot find our hotel.
Beautiful, it is, to be lost. To forget the world. I escape to the spiritual realm when I am pressed to him, under his spell. It's lovely, frightening; like the scream of an angel and the beauty of the devil.
