THE LIGHTHOUSE

                                                                            The Lighthouse

     Something woke me from sleep at almost two in the morning. It happens often and usually for no reason at all except to remind me that restless sleep is going to slowly give way to an early morning because of it. But tonight it was different.  The rain outside drummed against the rooftop and  sending wave after wave of cold sheets to stream down the window panes. Each one illuminated briefly by the light of the table lamp before running off the sill and falling into the darkness below.
     I used to love the sound of the wind and rain at night.  That consoling patter combined with the innability to go anywhere else.  Not an isolation at all, but a reassuring comfort while I held her tucked against my arm and listened to her breath. Rain and wind and darkness had always been such reliable alliesto us  when we were alone, and the security of the moments assured by the fact that if we would not go out, neither would anyone else care to get in.  Lightning flashed once and then ripped a thunderous peal across the sky.  As though nothing less important could contend with something that loud, there was one thing that could, and did.
     The cell phone chirped out in the dark and I reached across the bed to the table to flip the top of the phone back.

     "Hello?"

     A long stretch of silence came from the phone and spoke volumes.  She had been crying.

   "Hi"

    "Are you okay? I haven't heard from you in a while."

    "I'm fine. Everything is just fine".
    
     The word 'fine' had become a word with polar opposite meanings to me a long time ago.  The trick was to listen carefully to how the word escaped the edge of her teeth and whether the tone rose in the middle of the word to say she was indeed fine or fell dead and clipped that told me she was anything but.  This time the word 'fine'  dropped as though it had been lead shot.

     "No it isn't.  Where are you?"

     No answer.  Just a long, slow, drawn out and  shuddering breath that had me on the floor and pulling clothes on before she could get the first word out.
     "I'm....in that place.  The one that you told me to go to if I needed you.  And I knew you'd be here if I called....and I need you to come and get me. Don't ask about it. Just come get me."
    
     I pulled my jacket on and climbed down the stairs with a thousand thoughts running through my head.  She wouldn't call unless she really needed something, and trying to figure out what to bring to make sure it was there was soon solved by again, listening to what she asked for.  Just me and me there where she needed me.  I could fix anything else as soon as I was where she knew she could have that.

     I was completely soaked before I made it to the door of the truck.  Jamming the keys into the ignition and twisting the key.  "Please be okay" I whispered to myself. But I knew, when I had to whisper it, it was already not what it should be.

     The car spit the gravel in the drive and I raced down the road.  We had planned an isolated location months ago that we would meet at just in case she ever needed a place she could go on short notice with no planning.  She didn't have to explain it. I knew. The wipers on the windshield flung heavy cold rain to the sides of the truck and the headlights burned into the sheets of rain as I fought the wind.  No comfort to me now.  Just more things in my way.

     I neared the old side road I needed to turn down and found her car parked at the side of the road up underneath a large Elm tree. The lights were still on and the engine running.  I slowed to park along side and glanced into the rain speckled window.  Empty.  I peered into the back and found that seat empty as well.   No purse in the front seat and none of the usual things she normally took along with her.

     Up ahead of her car at the outer edge of the limits of the headlights, her jacket lay in the road.  Blind panic hit me and I crawled my truck forward and got out to pick it up. Her sweatshirt lay another 50 yards up the road as well, as were her shoes and socks.  Seeing no other choice but to follow in the direction she obviously went, I sped up slightly to get to her as soon as I could but not so much that I would miss her in the blinding wind and rain.

     Another quarter mile and I finally saw the outline of her at the side of the road.  She was  walking but only  in her sweat pants and a T-shirt.  But still walking.  The headlights illuminated the road ahead of her enough to have her realize that someone was driving behind her and she finally stopped.  She didn't turn to go back to the truck though, and waited for me to come to her.  I pulled ahead of her and opened the door.

     Soaked from head to toe, she shivered in the rain.  Her hair plastered to her face and  eyes puffy and red from both tears and rain. Her feet were cold and wet and covered in mud.  Goose bumps covered her body and the only thing within her now that had any semblance of normality was the fierce pride that refused to ever leave her face until she know she was in a place where she didn't need it.
     I looked deep into her eyes and and didn't know exactly why she was here the way she was.  But I didn't need explanations or reasons from her now any more than I ever did and she knew she never had to give a reason to not have me there.

     She had stripped everything from herself and had no intention of bringing anything with her. The only thing she still retained was her cell phone I had given her.

     "Get in"

     She paused for a moment in the rain and then began peeling her remaining clothes off of her body.  She dropped them into the mud until she stood completely naked before climbing into the front seat.  I know this woman like no other man, and I understood what this was.  This was out, and off, and away.  Maybe not for good, but for right now it was going to be complete and total.
     "Where do you want me to go?"

     She  looked at me with  an expression I rarely see in her.  It is anger and rage mixed with absolute love and trust.  She knows she can let any emotion fly in front of me, but can never stop looking at me in a way that doesn't convey a complete knowing of what I will do for her.

     "Just drive until we are away.  Just drive until I feel safe. I need a place to think alone, but I need you there with me while I do."

     I reached into the back of the truck and pulled her blanket out to wrap around her and then turned the truck around to shut off her car and lock the doors.  No one would find it out here under the trees on a seasonal road and she seemed less than concerned either way.  I tucked the keys up under the seat beneath me and shut off her cell phone.  No need to have any reminder for a woman who obviously needed a clean slate to think, and the phone had already served its sole purpose.

     She stared ahead out into the rain defiantly as we drove off into the night.  I said nothing.    She said nothing for a long time but as we drove, her face softened as the anger dropped off.  She glanced over and spoke in a very clear but shaky voice.
    
     I know you have already done more than I expect or deserve for me tonight.  I should have called for you more than I did.  But I need you to tell me something."

      She stopped for a moment and then corrected herself.

     "No....I need you to promise me something."

      I looked over at her and still found it odd that this woman would ever feel the need to ask me to promise anything to her If it had anything to do with her, but I answered anyway.

    "Okay. I promise"

     "Promise me that you'll help me do this, but let me do it my way.  I need you here with me....but I need to do it on my own. Promise me that you won't fail."

     "I promise"

      The fierce pride slowly dropped off of her face.  Turning slowly into the woman I would do anything to protect.  The edges of her face softened and then gave way to be replaced with an inward sadness, and then into a deeper grief.  I didn't know what it was yet, and frankly didn't care.  She would tell me when the time came or she wouldn't.  That wasn't my job right now.  I understood the promise I made for exactly what it was as well as for all of the things it implied.  I was here for her, but only as far as she could reach.
    
     She slumped and relaxed and finally gave way to a quiet sobbing.  When she cries, she cries freely with me.  It isn't a weakness or a failure to me or her.  It is a catharsis that heals because it can be done without shame or pride to stop it before it is ready.

     She pulled the blanket up and around her and settled into a sadness I have never seen in her.  But it is not mine to fix. It is only my job to get her where she needed to be.

     I didn't concern myself with where we would be going. 'Out and Away' is its own road map, and it makes no difference which direction you go as long as it isn't back into the fray.  I turned on the radio and pointed the truck East. I didn't know how far we would go, but  I would drive until she told me to stop.

     She must have been exhausted.  She moved very little and I let her sleep as much as she needed.  It saddened me to know that this woman I loved so much could cry as she slept.  Anger and frustration mixed with love and compassion is a horrible combination of emotions, and if I could, I would take them all on myself to keep them from her.  As it was, I grieved quietly to myself for all of things I wished I could fix without her ever having to tell me.
    
     We drove on until morning, and still she slept.  She occasionally  her hand stretched from the blanket and reached over to check and see if I was there.  Just a simple touch against her wrist and fingers and then up along her forearm to give her the peace of knowing she was never alone before slipping her hand back under the blanket.  Occasionally I would reach over and run my hand down her smooth flat back and down the length of her thigh.  She sleeps deepest when she knows she is touched.  She sleeps most soundly when the touch she feels tells her she is loved.

          The miles rolled out underneath us and the rain finally gave way to an inky blackness. Just the two of us pulled along behind the headlights into a place that only she knew we needed to be. I stopped and got her coffee and let the smell of it in the cup holder fill the truck.  Earlier in the morning I picked her up a sweatshirt and sweatpants and a pair of nice soft socks to wear when she woke up, but she seemed more than content to drive along with nothing but the feeling of her blanket against her soft warm skin and I saw no reason to have it any other way.

     At ten-thirty she pulled her head from the blanket and smiled through a tousled mop of hair.  Not the usual happy smile, but one that told her that what she needed from who she needed it from had come through in spades to put her in exactly the spot she needed to be.

     She sipped her coffee slowly, but still said nothing.  I don't think I have ever spent this much time in complete silence with this woman, and found it pleasant to know that I loved her just as much for what she causes in me regardless of whether she speaks or not.

     She finally leaned over and touched my face and asked in a very small voice "Where are we?"

     I love that voice.  That is the voice that so very few people know and appreciate for what it is.  The voice that says I am safe and protected for no other reason than the fact that she is.  It's the voice that tells me I am doing exactly what she needs at this very moment.

    "We're in Maine, baby."```

     She looked out the window as though I had said something as normal as mentioning that we had simply crossed town, and not three states. The warm coffee slid across her lips and  she repeated the word "Maine" plainly and with stoic resolution; as though she were a foot soldier leaving a battlefield for the place they would give it a name.

     She leaned across the center console of the truck and took my hand in hers.  A silent and knowing reassurance to both me and her that I was and had done everything she asked in a way that required her to do nothing but hand the reigns over to me and know that I would not fail her.

     The road wound back and forth through the late morning as she stared out the window in a brooding quiet silence.  Not sulking or dark, but pensive.  She was looking for something.  We had never been here before in our lives, but she knew exactly what she was looking for. I drove on pushing one road to its end and starting on another.  It is so often that I tell her that it isn't the destination but the journey that makes the trip worth it.  But not this time.  This time it was as though we were magnetically pulled to a destination that I did not know but that she could feel.  My only job was to feel it in her and point the truck in the direction I felt it the strongest in her.

     "We're here"  She replied quietly.

     "Where?"

     "This is as far as I want to go and this is where I need to be right now."

     I slowed the truck and pulled it to the side of the road to be sure of exactly where she wanted to be.

     "Right here?"

     She smiled at me as though she realized that all she ever needed to  do was simply ask, and that if the spot she chose to be at that very moment was the side of a road on the coast of Maine, then it would be done.

"No, baby, there."

     Her long slender finger pointed out of the window and across a wide stretch of water to a tall lighthouse.  My mind reeled with how I was going to accomplish this, but when this woman asks for something, she has a very good reason for what it is that she needs and how it touches her.  If this woman wants a lighthouse, then a lighthouse is exactly where she will be.

     The road bent into a tight curve and narrowed to a single dirt road covered in trees.  A small landing dock jutted from the edge of the water and an old and  weathered boat sat tied to the pilings.  Its paint washed pale by countless seasons and the tack and rigging corroded, but still able if not completely sea worthy.  I reached into the back of the truck and pulled her clothes from the behind the seat and a pair of my boots.  Not exactly the most attractive of footwear for such dainty pretty feet, but she made no mention of it and wound up looking far more attractive in them than I would have thought possible.
    
     I stopped the truck and stepped out onto the ground to walk over to an old man in a yellow mackinaw.  His salty white beard  sticking in all directions. He held a black ebony pipe in his teeth and was singing quietly to himself as I approached him.

     "Excuse me, but can this boat go to the lighthouse?"

     He smiled at me as though it was a silly question to ask a sailor if the boat he works can do what it was built for, instead of look like a prop in a fish and chips commercial.

"Can and does, lad. Can and does."

     I shuffled trying   to say what I realized I was unprepared to ask for before the conversation began. I started...and stopped...and then started again."

"Listen,.... I just drove up with my best friend and....from New York last night.  And you see,... she needs to go to this lighthouse."  I swept my hand up and out to point at the lighthouse and then pulled it back down quickly so as not to look like the idiot I had just made myself out to be.  Like somehow, he needed the finger pointing to direct him to the obvious tower that had always been there.  "Not just any lighthouse. THIS lighthouse.  And I'm not really sure how.  And  even if  I can get her to it, that we might need to turn right around and come back because I don't even know who runs the lighthouse. But... I need to get her to the lighthouse."

     The end of my sentence trailed off as though even I had realized what I had just asked the man. He rubbed his beard for a moment and then replied as he went back to his work.

"Can I ask you why?"

"I'm not really sure why, to be honest.  I went and picked her up and she said drive. I didn't really plan where we were going, but this is where she says she needs to be...and.."

"..And so you drove all the way through the night to a lighthouse you've never been to because the woman you are with told you that that's the place she needs to go?  With no plan as to how to get there or no idea about who runs it or  whether or not you can even get in?"

     I stared at him in disbelief at suddenly having the lack of planning be my total downfall.  What was worse, was having it brought to light in front of someone else so quickly. A total stranger I had bared my deepest need to.  I looked out over the water at the lighthouse jutting from the rocks like the tower to a fortress and answered the only thing I could honestly say.

"Yes"

     He stopped for a moment and looked at me.  For a brief moment he seemed happy...and then sad...and then resigned to a decision he had made in his mind but didn't yet say.

     I suddenly felt stupid and embarrased and turned on my heel to walk away while backing away from the conversation as quickly as my request.

     He stared intently down at the small fishing floats and nets he had been working on and shifted the pipe in his mouth to mumble two words.

"Fifty years"

     I almost didn't hear him for as quiet as he said it.

     "Excuse me?" I replied, almost wondering if I had heard it at all and had just replied to a thought rather than a voice.

    "It has been nearly fifty years since I have heard of something so incredibly futile as asking a complete and total stranger for something that has no possibility of working to his advantage no matter how hard he sets his mind to doing it and actually believing he has a chance in hell of getting it."
  
     He leaned back in his old chair and smiled at me.  For a brief moment a rage built inside of me that overwhelmed my embarrassment.  It had almost popped from my mouth when he started to speak again.  I had half a mind to cut him off and just unload my frustration on him, but curiosity got the better of me and I opted for one more snippet of sarcasm. I almost missed the gleam of admiration in his eye.

     "When I was a very young man, I knew of someone who did the very same thing you are asking right now.  He was a nice enough kid and never seemed to get exactly what he wanted from the world, but he always knew he had found it in the woman he brought with him when he drove up to this dock with her. Just like you did.  He'd come up here on a whim and had just driven until they run out of road.  And when they ran out of road, he did the next best thing he could.  He asked for a ride to the lighthouse."

     He drew deep on his pipe and waited for me to get everything he had said so far into my head.  Like a slow sifting sand that needed to be packed down before he could build on it.  I nodded to him to let him know I was listening.

     "Now this kid was so out of his league.  Green as all hell and from nowhere near this place or this life.  But he had a stroke of luck with him that day.  And as everyone knows, luck is one of the first things Fate sets in your hand when you don't have anything else to pull from."

     This old man had seriously piqued my interest at the tale he decided to give to me.  Maybe not what I needed at the moment, but not something I could walk away from until he finished, either.

     "So like I said, he needed a way to the lighthouse for the same reason you did, and asked the very same thing you ask me now.  But he went and managed to find the keeper of that lighthouse sitting right here on this here dock...in front of this here boat.  Just like you."

     The comparison of the situation or the similarity of the people involved didn't go unnoticed, but a small window of hope opened up inside of me.

"So you know this lighthouse keeper, then?" I asked.

     "Well of course I know him" he replied with a proud smile.  "He's me."

     I stood in mute silence as all of the pieces clicked into place.  Like feeling as though you had been shaking a box of puzzle pieces and having it suddenly pop into the picture on the outside label.


     "Sometimes Fate draws you to a place, lad. No rhyme or reason to her at all.  She just leads a person where she  needs to be....and what she feels ye need to get her there...she provides.  Fate rarely comes at the moment of our own choosing....but she always makes sure she puts the right people in for the job. "

     I glanced back to the truck to see my very best friend looking at me through the window.  That same small gentle smile that I had fallen in love with so very long ago making me feel as though luck may come from the pocket of Fate, but that Fate saw fit to ensure that what gave it to me came from something so much larger than anything that could be held in my pocket.

     "Go get your lady friend, lad.  I'll untie the boat and take you over.  There's a gale coming tonight and I planned to be with my wife tonight in the cottage, but I'll show you how to light the burners and you call me if you need anything."

     I stopped short at the disbelief that this man was going to give me the run of a lighthouse.

     "Wait.  I don't know the first thing about running a lighthouse.  And certainly not with a woman alone.  What if something happens?"

     The old man smiled and said "You know everything anyone ever needed to know about a lighthouse, lad.  And more about a keeper than ye think.  All you need to do is be right where your needed at exactly the right time.  Sure you'll be alone with your lady friend...and something just may happen, but that lighthouse has been through every storm for the last 150 years....and how do ye suppose the woman I brought here became who she is to me today?  That lighthouse is the fortress you think it is.  But every good fortress hold a magic inside that can only be opened by people who know what it is from the outside to let it become what it is from the inside.  Let it be what it is, and let your lady friend, there, find what she needs to find. The rest takes care of itself."



     I parked the car and led her up onto the dock and into the boat.  The old man made nothing more than a quick and polite greeting to her, but understood exactly what she needed.  He had, after all, been here before.   She settled down on the railing and peered out over the bow of the boat.  She is always such a beautifully powerful and strong woman to me, but she is never more moving than when it is up to me to protect her.  Her power over me not coming from how she shows it to others, but how she relinquishes it to me with total trust and knows I will take care of her.

      The boat pulled away from the dock and puttered slowly up and around the back side of the island.  The lighthouse rested on the point near the waves and shot straight up into the sky.  With each minute it appeared larger and larger.  Its smooth white walls topped with its black dome and watch room.

     With the boat docked at the lighthouse, It was only a few brief minutes to the top.  A small elevator had been installed that carried three people snugly,but eliminated the need for 20 minutes of stairs. 

     The old keeper explained how the lens worked and then instructed me on how to use the radio if I should need him.  The light was actually powered by electricity fed out to the island. All that was left to do was be introduced to the lower gallery and the small rooms for sleeping.  The old man then went down the elevator and left the two of us until we decided it was time to go.

     I let her lead this time.  This was not the time to be asking questions or prodding for answers.  This was simply the time that put me at the tips of her fingers as soon as she asked, and to let everything else be what she needed it to be.  I had remembered to bring her her blanket and allowed her to sit as close or as far as she needed to be.  Sometimes she would pad out to the balcony railing and stare out across the grey water and the gunmetal sky.  No wind yet, but it would come, so I let her simply think.

     Occasionally her small voice would whisper something I knew she already had the answers for, but I gave them anyway.  She knows I love her, but she needed to hear it come from my mouth.  She knows she is adored, but she needed to comprehend it in a way that sinks deeper than words.  She needed to know she is worth it, and I had to remind her that there is not anywhere I wouldn't go to put her at peace....even at the top of a lighthouse alone.

     It wasn't a time to discuss or to question.  Those things have all but disappeared between the two of us.  And what she chooses to do is of no consequence to how much she is loved by me.  It's simply to be there for everything that she needs in exactly the way she needs it.

     The sun dipped low into the sky and rested on the edge of the ocean.  the dull  ruddy red lost through the approaching storm and giving only dim rays of light through the thickening clouds.

     All day long I watched her from the side.  Never wanting to be too close for her not to think on her own, but never so far away that she didn't think , even for an instant, that I wasn't right there at her side.  A strange place to be.  Be nothing, be everything, but do it in exactly the proportion that she needs from me now.  Sometimes the best way to be needed is to be there and not be needed.

     I spent my time writing and mostly writing about her.  How it is that she puts light into shadows of a room simply by having it attach to her skin.  How she is so incredibly cherished for everything that she is and all that she strives to be.  She scares me sometimes.  Not in a fearful way but in how she has become such an overwhelming power within my life for all of her strength and grace, and still never shows it so much as when she is up against me and looking to just be held as a woman.

     She took the elevator down to the lower floor and walked out to the edge of the rocks and just sat.  I watched her from the top of the watch room.  She looked so tiny and small against the great stretch of ocean in front of her.  Her legs pulled up against her and her hands wrapped around them, her hair blowing off the side of her face as she thought all the things she needed.  But for as small and tiny against such massive things around her, she was still and always will be a giant in my life.  It is a humbling thing to see what you love set against such immense things as entire oceans and light houses and stones the size of houses....and still know that the one small woman amid them all makes them seem paltry and insignificant.

    Finally, as the sun dipped down below the ocean and the wind and waves began to crash the waves against the bottom of the lighthouse, she came to me.  She stood in front of me and simply leaned against the inner railing of the gallery. I looked up at her and she smiled.  A deeper, more full and sweet smile that I am usually accustomed to seeing.  She looked over at me and asked with that same smile,

     "Am I really worth it to you?  I mean for everything that you know and have to put up with, am I really worth it to you to  do all of this?"

     Sometimes some of the most meaningful things can be said in a few short words.  But the greatest of them can be said with only one.  Sometimes there are words that transmit the longing of an entire life into a single word and puts everything into a knowable spot that simply can not be altered or changed.

     I looked back at her and smiled and simply said "Yes".

She walked around the edge of the railing and stepped down to the small landing that I sat on.  The great lens spun behind her and slightly above the level of her head in its slow track across the water.  Each rotation illuminating a white corona behind her.  I have often seen her in a dreams as my most cherished hero in light that blinded me, but to see it now with her body silhouetted against the darkness of the sky and then the light of the lighthouse lens was to take a dream and push it into reality in a way I was not prepared to experience.

      It was as though two things had happened at once that made us both come to a new realization of what we were to each other.  One that told her that she is indeed the most cherished light in my life, and the other that shows me that compared to the brightest thing I have ever seen, that it is her that gives definition to that intensity.  She stood before me and dropped the blanket to her feet and pulled her clothing off once again.  Not in a sexual way but as a way of saying "I trust you" with every part of her body.  No fear.  No shame or regret, no judgments. Just a simple surrender for all that it is worth..  Just the woman I love for nothing more than just the woman.  And even then, she is so much more than anything I had ever imagined.

     She knelt down and wrapped the blanket around the both of us and then snuggled in against my chest on the small couch.  She played with the edge of the blanket idly twisting it back and forth and twirling it around the end of her finger.  I have always found her adorable when she does this.  When she's formulating something in her mind that she wants to say, but is still to shy to say.

         I ran my fingers through her hair and out of her beautiful brown eyes.
 "You want to talk?"

     She pouted her lips very slightly, lifting the bottom lip up rather than out.  The way that she does when she is convinced of what she feels and does it just before she nods or shakes her head.

     I scooped her up and cradled the edge of her shoulder into mine so she could sit as close as she could and still look at me.  It's a very comforting way to hold her and it lets her know that the comfort goes beyond the simple holding of her.  Comfort to me, and to her, is something that is felt on the inside as much as the outside.

     I ran my fingers through her hair and out of her beautiful brown eyes and waited for her to assemble all the pieces.

     "I've been sitting here all day...thinking.  About you and me....and about what I want to feel...and how it is that I do feel now.  It's just....I think I have gotten to the point where I know that I can do anything because I always have.  But just because I have doesn't mean I should."
   
     She looked at me straight in the eye and began talking to me in a way that she usually does while looking down or away.  Things I know as true, but are still difficult for her to say.  But this time she looked right at me and whispered.

     "I've been walking around and looking at this lighthouse.  And the more I look at it, the more it reminds me of you.  It's right where I put it and it's right where I need it for now.  It will weather and endure anything thrown against it, but it just won't budge.
   
     She stared out across the watch room and listened to the hum of the rotating beacon above us.

     "This lighthouse....is right where it needs to be.  Its built solid because it needs to be able to stay where it is to do what other people need it to do.  And that's to watch.  It's diligent and constant and vigilant, but only if we put someone in charge of the light.  Little ships can come and go, but its the man in the lighthouse who ensures that everything it can see and illuminate is seen and understood for what it is.  And for as rarely as we actually come to the lighthouse,....we would never be able to go anywhere else if we didn't know that the lighthouse and the keeper weren't watching over us.  I don't think I ever understood how lonely it is to be a lighthouse or for the man inside, or how dependent we can become on what it does to our lives below it.

     I sat for a minute and let this all soak in.  I so love this woman for all that she makes me feel.  She has no idea what it means to be the person who loves her for what she is.
  
    "Love, The keeper of a lighthouse is exactly where he is because he KNOWS what he is to other people.  Its a choice to be that for someone else. Not because he likes the loneliness others take as preferred solitude. For as lofty as the station appears to be and the importance to allow others to move, it is as dark as a grave to which he has chosen for the sake of another. The blinding beam of a lighthouse projects away from the keeper, and illuminates nothing of the man who understands the true need of him. "

     Her fingers played with the buttons on my shirt and whispered almost imperceptibly, "I don't want to be out away and underneath the lighthouse anymore.  I want to be inside of your lighthouse in the place where....."

     Her thoughts ran out as she turned to kiss me and wrapped her fingers up and around my neck.  Her soft warm lips parting slightly as if to ask me if it is okay, and then allowing herself to slip inside of my mouth.
 
     She has no idea what something as simple as a kiss does to me.  I don't think she ever has and for as hard as I try to explain it, it doesn't even compare to the overwhelming energy that I feel from her.  And it isn't a sexual feeling at all.  It is a feeling that obviously awakens it, but has always been the most comforting feeling I have ever known to know that she holds me to her lips.

     My hands slipped underneath her blanket to caress the edge of her shoulder blades and onto the soft rounded tops of her shoulder.  Her warm breasts gently pressed against the front of my shirt as she leaned back slightly to look at her.  She whispered again with that loving voice that I have heard in my head every day since I have met her.

     "Make love to me.  Please make love to me for everything that I am to you. Not for anything else we are or what we might become but for me right here, right now."
    
        But before she even could, sitting there against the stone wall with our feet pressed against the iron railing of a lighthouse she  put her head against my shoulder and slowly drifted off to sleep The softness of her face was reflected with each passing of the beam of light as it traveled overhead. A slow illuminating tattoo on the inside of my heart that grew a greater intensity  with its passing of the light into darkness than by the reflection on her cheek against my chest.