Remember Me – Part 1

She was more beautiful than the sea, more beautiful than the moonlight that drizzled lovingly over her, more beautiful than the music she danced to. She was more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen.

The night wasn’t cold. It wasn’t warm either. I sat on the dunes, watching the flat full disc of the moon play off the water as it rolled, crested, crashed and foamed against the sands. The dark treeline sheltered the cove and shielded it from prying eyes, so only the sea watched me sit and stare. The lighthouse at the cove’s point, nestled among the rocks and shoals, shined its beacon to warn the hapless of the dangers beneath the deceptive calm. But the lighthouse keepers appeared asleep in the calm, cloudless night. I sat alone with the ocean and the trees and the black, stoic tower of the lonely lighthouse.

I love the ocean, I always have. I love the smell of the mist as it caresses my face. The breeze’s gentle, loving fingers run through my hair, tickle my neck and kiss my cheeks. I smile at the beach with no reason to smile, with no other company than the mysterious deep stretching away from me. It’s beautiful, powerful, alive. And she was all of those things, and more… so much more.

I noticed first a black spot, tiny, just beyond the crests of the incoming waves. It rose above the textured water’s surface, the small blackness, a bump or smudge, and grew higher. As the rolling, playing sea foamed and misted, it became more clear.

A form. A head. Shoulders. A body. A beautiful, shapely body, swaying while it moved, almost one with the water. It was like the ocean came alive and stood up and the tide carried its newfound shape toward the beach.

Toward me.

Strange, I didn’t hear her or see her among the waves. Her clandestine swim must have happened against the darkness of the treeline to my left, her splashes and strokes lost to the throaty seduction of the surf. I only saw her now, as if she finally wanted me to, like she was ready to be seen. The waves overcame her, roared down and swallowed her, and I thought her a dream, a mirage. But she strolled on as if nothing happened, as if the sea were an illusion and the waves harmless visions. She came out of the water, the foam around her ankles, and the way she moved — the way she carried herself, with salty water running from her in tiny waterfalls, the curved outlines of her face and body, captured in the moon’s white-blue glow — was ethereal.

I knew then, even blinded by the dark and deafened by the surf … I knew then she was beautiful. More beautiful than anything I’d ever seen, more beautiful than anything I’d ever imagined.

And she was coming toward me.

I still couldn’t see her, not clearly, but she came up the beach and beyond the waterline. She seemed to float over the dunes to stand near me. I couldn’t see what she was wearing, couldn’t see anything but a strange light from her eyes. It captivated me. It was a trick of the moonlight, of course, but the way it played … it was hypnotic. She was hypnotic. I couldn’t tear my gaze from her, though I knew it was rude to stare. I couldn’t do anything else. I saw her smile, and she wiped her face and pushed a sodden strand of hair behind her ear with a delicate finger. The move was so ordinary, and so seductive, so erotic, so enticing, I worried I was drooling.

She looked right at me. I was alone on the beach, so I know she was looking at me. There was no one else to look at. She shone with the moonlight playing on her wet skin, glistening and shimmering. She was like a sea shell gathered from a tide pool, radiant and glowing and spectacular. I wanted so much for the lighthouse beacon to flash our way, to race over the beach by some mysterious accident, to stray off course and wander over her body. I wanted the light to linger on her, the way I wanted my hands to linger on her, to trace her curves, her shapes, her contours. I wanted to know her, all of her, every inch, every detail. But the lighthouse didn’t cooperate, and I had to be content with the moon, shining full behind her.

Music emanated from her then, a symphony, the most wonderful song. It would’ve made birds weep with envy, made Beethoven and Mozart give up trying to create melodies and harmonies, made the angels gasp in start, and it made my heart slam to a stop in my chest.

She spoke, and the music was her voice.

“Hello,” she sang to me, and it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. I wanted to cry with its beauty, the way it touched my soul, the way it held me.

Instead I smiled awkward and gawky, and answered her. “Hi.” It sounded like the braying of an ass compared to her voice.

“Have we met?”

She was so tender, so sweet with her query. I smiled again, and felt gooseflesh rise on my neck and arms. I was grateful then for the moonlight’s pale glow, because she couldn’t see me blush.

“I don’t … think so,” I stammered. “But we can change that now. I’m …”

“No, don’t … don’t tell me. I know your name.”

I sat stunned, confused. “You … you do?”

“Yes. I’ve always known your name.”

“I don’t … I don’t understand. You just asked if we’ve met.”

She tinkled a laughed then, a lilted, gentle, gold bell chime. It was like the sound of a child’s laugh, free and unrestrained, but rich and throaty, sexy and desirable. I wanted to take her in my arms, hold her and kiss her, wrap myself in her like I would wrap myself in a blanket.

She tipped her head, and for a fleeting moment I thought she read my thoughts, or sensed my desire, or smelled my lust. She only smiled again.

“Sometimes a mystery is fun … don’t you think?”

“But you said you knew my name.”

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Tell me what it is, then.”

“Not now,” she smiled. “Soon. Not now. I know you watch the ocean, and I know you wonder at its power and majesty. I know you’re drawn to it, like a moth to a flame, without understanding why or how. You don’t question the longing. You come, sit, stare … and feel it.”

“Feel … it?”

“The connection. You feel it, don’t you? That thread tying you to the sea, that vibrating cord that binds you to it. Like an umbilical cord, feeding you, nourishing you, drawing you near, keeping you near, holding you bound.”

I was nodding as she spoke, and continued after she finished. She could have told me the moon above her head was green cheese and I would have nodded. She could have told me I was growing a sausage from my chin and I would have nodded. I wanted nothing more than the sound of her voice. It was like listening to the ocean waves break on the beach. There was a comfort, a soothing, a demulcent effect to it.

“I feel it too. I always have.”

“I … I didn’t see you swimming. You surprised me. I thought I was alone in the cove.”

“No? You were somewhere else, perhaps. Out to sea. Far from here.”

I nodded again. She was like a siren. I couldn’t resist her. “Maybe. I’m here now.”

“Yes.” She smiled and moved closer.

I thought for a moment she’d sit beside me, but she only tipped her head and gazed her quizzical bird-gaze at me. I smiled back, because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think I could stand in my present physical state. I thought it best to stay seated or betray too much of my first impression of her.

“Do you dance?” Her question was so strange, I knit my brows and cocked my head.

“I’m … what?”

She laughed again, and I melted under its gentle warmth like a candle’s flame melts the wax.

“I said, do you dance?” She stirred the sand with a toe, one knee seductively overlapping the weight-bearing leg. I was entranced by its movement and shape … I wanted to feel its texture with my hand, my cheek, my tongue …

“Do you?”

I started, tore my eyes from her legs. “I don’t … no, I don’t dance. Not well. Not often. I love music, though.”

“The music is playing now. Shall I dance for you?”

“Music is …?”

“Yes. Don’t you hear the song of the ocean, playing for us? Shall I dance to it for you? Would you like that?”

My jaw was agape. It worked, tried to form words, and her smile took them from me. I tried to nod, but no movement was possible.

“You’ve always liked to watch me dance, haven’t you?”

I nodded again. I had no idea what she was talking about and it didn’t matter. I would have nodded if she told me to hang an anchor around my neck and throw myself into the cove.

And then she danced.

She undulated, her midriff liquefied, and I swear I watched the water coming alive again. She rippled and swayed, swelled and crested, her hips moved like living beings, apart from her, with minds of their own. She held her arms over her head and they writhed like serpents, her hips led her over the sand, twisting her, grinding and pumping and rolling. She undulated like the ocean, like the water behind her, somehow in time with it, somehow in concert with it, somehow one with it, somehow commanding it, controlling it, mistress of it. She moved like a part of the sea, like a thing born of it. And I burned for her as she danced. The more she moved, the more I burned. The more she swayed, the more my blood boiled. The more she tipped her head, hands playing and plying, neck open and exposed, muscles rippling under her skin, the more I wanted to have her, to become part of her, to take her and claim her and hold her and feel her around me, over me, plunging into her as one plunges into the sea, into the depths, into the mysterious fathoms…

But I couldn’t move. I could only stare at her, my breath ragged and short, sweating with desire and lust, shaking. I could only watch her as she danced and danced and danced and danced … and the ocean made the music for her, the surf moved in time with her, and together they were one entity, one being, one essence, one dancing life moving on the beach beneath the pale full moon.

I don’t know when she sat beside me. I don’t know when she stopped dancing. She was close to me but I couldn’t feel her warmth. She crossed her ankles delicately, leaned back on her hands behind her, head propped on one shoulder as she stared. We stared out to sea and never said a word, and exchanged so much in that silence, in that sharing. I have no idea how much time passed. I sat with my arms around my knees and felt her presence. I didn’t stare at her, only at the ocean, but all I saw was her.

The sky paled. The wispy clouds high above the cove, over the treeline, changed to vivid pinks and purples, oranges and yellows. The slow transgression of daylight on the cove crept on us unaware, and she spoke, like a whisper, so she wouldn’t disturb the cove in its peace.

“Let’s go inside. The sun is coming.”

“Inside? Inside where?”

“The lighthouse. The sun is coming.”

“But the lighthouse is someone’s home. I …”

“Yes, the lighthouse is someone’s home. Let’s go there before the sun comes.”

“It’s someone’s home … we can’t just …”

“We can. I can. Come with me. Please.”

She held her hand out to me, and I saw then she wore something like a swimsuit, and something like a wrap around her waist, but couldn’t see the details. It was like she shunned light and it shunned her, refused to illuminate her, to show her to me. Or, like details didn’t matter. I couldn’t tell which, and didn’t care. The azure sky above us receded faster now, fainter, brighter colors rose from the horizon.

I took her hand, and she pulled me along, her movements urgent, her grip desperate.

“Hurry. Before the sun comes up. Before the day breaks. Hurry.”

I hurried and didn’t ask why. I hurried, my heart pounding like the world would end if I didn’t. We raced, ran like chased animals, hand-in-hand, legs pumping over sand, then rocks, to the lighthouse standing vigil over the sea. She ran and didn’t speak, and her feet pranced over the terrain light, sure and true, familiar with the path, certain of the way. I followed without knowing why, without knowing where. We darted up the rocks and away from the lighthouse keeper’s residence, down a carved niche in the crags lined by stairs, to a door in the lighthouse foundation. She turned the knob, knew it would open, and it did. She never let go of my hand, never turned back to look at me. She led me into a dark passage in the lighthouse bowels, and down again, farther, until we were below sea level, out of sight and deep inside the rocks, where the lighthouse foundation kept the ocean’s pounding, throbbing, seeking, probing waters away.

Breathless, we panted, chests heaving close together, the two of us faint outlines in the gloom. I felt her breath on my cheek, like a sea mist breeze, her hand still in mine. It was chilled, as chilled as the water in the cove, but I took it in both of mine, and it warmed. Her fingers held mine hard, as if she feared I’d leave, disappear, if she let go. And when her lips touched mine it was like kissing the surf. She was cold when I embraced her, cold as the ocean, cold as the currents beyond the beach. So cold I caught my breath, but I held her and she warmed so quickly, and her lips were so soft, so sweet and tender, so hungry and longing. She kissed me and pulled my senses from me and we fell into each other, fell together the way the white foam rushes back to the waves, and we meshed and merged and became one like swells from the open water crashing to the beach, to wash it and pummel it and embrace it all at once. We were like that — crashing and pummeling and joining and different but one.

She was more beautiful than the sea, more beautiful than the moonlight that drizzled lovingly over her, more beautiful than the music she danced to. She was more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen, before or since.

And I was hopelessly lost to her then.