The Winds of May

Her skin began to peel the morning he left. It couldn’t be a coincidence; it was almost as if her pale bedroom body was no match for his heat.

She stood at her balcony, as the gentle afternoon breeze rippled through her tired lace curtains.

Cairo was caught in the confusing month of May, where the baking desert sun would suddenly be cut off by a gusty wind that tore through windows, whipped hair into tiny tornados, flung back the sails of the docking felucca boats along the Nile, only to subside into a quiet breeze.

This breeze was seductive, alluring, letting you believe that the cold had passed and the cotton sheets must be brought out to air in the sun; but don’t be fooled.
With darkness comes the desert wind.

She stood in the shadows and delicately peeled the skin off her chest, following the traces that his kisses had burnt into her.

The hollow of her collarbone, the nape of her neck; his pattern had left a trail of marks that would not fade, only unfold.

And now she must remove him, peeling off the skin like fabric off a moist body, clinging, unwilling to let go. She must.

His face lit up when he touched her, as if the electricity passed through her body to fill his. He sighed into her shoulder, dug his face into the warmth of her arms, glowing with light.

He lay sleeping in her scent, and yet she was the one completely helpless.

But the winds of May have a mysterious way of changing their minds, and as suddenly as his heat left her house, in his place, the gentle breeze flirted through her curtains.