SSC '04 [Adult]
502 Words

Spaces in Your Togetherness?
by Rhosymedre


"What are you reading, Amyly?"

"Hmm? Oh. Kahlil Gibran. 'On Marriage.'"

Stephen's prematurely gray eyebrows arched toward his thinning
hairline. This begged investigation. Amy routinely read
scientific tomes in bed to keep up with her professorial
colleagues, but he couldn't remember her so much as cracking
the thin volume of poetry he'd rashly presented her that first
Christmas. Clad in lightweight pajama bottoms on this balmy
night, he propped himself against the headboard on his side
before prodding, "And what does Gibran pontificate about yoked
ones like us?"

Her melodious contralto recited, "'Love one another, but make
not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the
shores of your souls.'" Amy guilelessly reached out and held
his hand. "Isn't that beautiful? Wait, I'll read the whole
poem." *

Soon she ended with "'And the oak tree and the cypress grow not
in each other's shadow.'"

Stephen nodded musingly. "Gibran exhorts in lyrical fluidity,
doesn't he? Beautiful images, love." He squeezed her fingers
gently, in ostensible concord. Then he probed, diffidently, "Why
single out that poem? You haven't turned the page." After a
pregnant silence: "Do you think my oak overshadows your cypress,
Amy? That our love is a bond too tight? That we're dividing our
space wrongly?"

Amy's sprightly giggle snipped her husband's thread of
consternation. She laid her cinnamon head familiarly against
his shoulder and rubbed soothingly.

Her soft words, however, reattached the thread: "Stephen, dear.
You spoil me. You do everything on the homefront. And I let
you... let you subsume me here. It's time more sea sloshed
between our souls, time I grew stronger in our homelife."

"This arrangement has worked for us, Amyly. I stay home
and knock out my Horace Hyperspace children's series, and
your physicist's brain is spared worry about cooking,
kid-chauffeuring, oil changes and lesser domestic marginalia,"
he countered quietly in her ear.

"Oh, Stephen, it isn't just that."

"What then?" he asked.

"You --"

But he tipped her face up and kissed searchingly, swallowing
her reply. While lip-locked he peeled the covers back and
pulled her against his stirring crotch. Amy mewled and deepened
their French. Stephen skimmed his hand up her thigh, bunching
her gauzy nightgown. He see-sawed her to push the material up
her buns and into the small of her back. Amy stiffened minutely
and shook her head, still kissing.

Stephen released her mouth. "Yes, love, " he rumbled. "Turn
over." Implacably he upended her over his lap... and clapped
dozens of red-hot handprints onto her twitching, bare buttocks.

Gibran's subversive verses evaporated into a throbbing haze.

After tear tracks dried and the sting died down, after
intimacies more carnal, his Amy would sleep soundly, forgetfully
until morning.

Stephen, family caretaker, orchestrator, bossman, had no intention
of re-sorting spaces in his and Amy's togetherness, or of unlacing
her dependency. "On Marriage" wouldn't bollix him. He crammed
the troublesome little volume behind the bookcase. Someday,
he'd dust it off for Amy to open again.

To another page.

______________________________________

Notes

* the full text of the poem:

Kahlil Gibran on Marriage

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, Master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.