Dante said that there is a place in hell for those who have sinned by allowing their appetite to silence the voice of their reason.
I do not usually take a man’s word for anything, but if this is the case, then what better way is there to be human than to err? Eve has taken the blame for too long. I thought I could share, or even take entirely, the weight of the apple on her shoulders.
I would not mind the piercing burn of hell if it were preceded by a life on earth spent with the warmth of her breath on my skin. The weight of her body pressed against mine. Her nails embedded into my flesh. The curls of her hair tangled between my fingers. Her sultry mess on my hands. The subtle taste of sweat on her skin. Her silhouette figured in my sight. The mound of her flesh in my grip. Her melodious sighs in my ear. And the impassioned cries of my name falling from her lips.
But since she minds, then maybe I could settle with the quiet for her. I could render this love mute so that nothing — not even a whisper — could escape the thin walls that hopefully keep us out of earshot and certainly away from judging eyes. But then again, if neither Adam nor even God could hold Lilith down, then why should I be?
When outside the walls of our intimate hiding, the facade of our womanhood is our veil of freedom. We are free to be near each other all the time because all is well when two women are close-knit.
It is no big deal for my fingers to always be with hers, intertwined. It is no big deal for our arms never to go unlinked. It is no big deal for her strokes to always find the small of my back.
Through these little touches, my starvation is kept at bay. But oh, is it so wrong to crave her when the curves of our faces fit into one another like puzzle pieces whenever they meet?
Is it so wrong that my tongue longs to be in the cradle of her mouth more than in mine? I know every crevice of it as if it were my own. I have tasted her every flavor, all of it etched in my brain: the cool of her mint toothpaste, the bitter essence of her favorite cigarette, the sweetness of her favorite candy and the occasional taste of blood — had I bitten her too hard.
I love how my kisses bring out different hues of violet patches on her neck, her chest, her thighs. As if giving her a keepsake for when she misses me. And oh, the sound of her every sigh, every moan, every whine — all her tones and tunes — in the mercy of my mouth down on her.
Her flesh is my favored relish. A meal that would suffice as my last, for the suffering that awaits me when I take Helen’s place in the second circle of hell.
Hell, ‘it is wrong,’ say those who could not accept that a woman could be made for another woman or even recognize her own desires. Propriety, purity and modesty all make a clamor so loud as to echo in her mind, commanding her to fast even at the face of utter hunger for another’s touch — let alone another woman’s.
They just do not want us to know what heaven feels like on earth… in the hands of a woman. So we’d grown to fear being “tainted” by pleasure and desire lest we want to burn in hell.
But I have come to find, in my own voyage, a paradise better than Eden — in her arms and in my gratification. I can attest that in no way does this searing desire taint my soul, rather, it nurtures my being.
We grew to impose on ourselves that a woman must act as an animal without an appetite. When in fact, this appetite is most natural, though an innate force in deep slumber. It lies in wait to be awoken by a single graze of skin.
All hell could break loose if a woman simply heeded the whisper of her flesh. Because her desire is, in truth, no whisper. Rather, a scream so deafening, echoing in her head as it runs through her spine and arouses her whole being, only that it could not escape her skin.
But I am not her. I am no Eve, no Magdalene, no repentance and no reason. But Calypso, who wants to keep her for myself.
