Eros Archives - The Pure Life of Dreams

June 8, 2023August 24, 2023

Visitors from Japan

Photo by Berlinofx via Pixabay

April 27, 2023June 15, 2024

Lights Out for the Comfort of Strangers

Dawn after lights out in the comfort of strangers, when the birds start singing

I was in a dorm with four beds, arranged in a square, one bed in each corner of the room, lights out, and I was in one of the beds with Matthew’s wife. Matthew was an ex-workmate.

We were furthest from the window and I wasn’t sure why I was sleeping with her because in the other three beds lay married couples, or couples who were single but seeing each other.

It was just the luck of the draw or how the lots were drawn.

Photo from Wallpaper Flare

December 15, 2022June 7, 2024

How to Make Chi Flow in the Room

I am at the Tai Chi beginners class because I know that some of the advanced students will be there and I have forgotten the sequence to the sixth. I sit to the side as the class concludes.

Then as I leave, a man walks with me into an adjacent Victorian style room. The room is empty but sun filled. It has brilliant white walls, with white crown mouldings, tall open stash windows and pine wood flooring.

The man throws his hand back in a sweeping motion, over his head but I don’t recall that move.

I try to mimic him. “I don’t remember that anywhere.”

“Try it again,” he says, and again he throws his hands up carelessly and bends backwards, pushing forward his pelvis.

The class is fully wrapping up now and people are flooding into the room. I stand over to the side.

Some men, young and lithe in black bicycle pants and bronzed naked chests are being flirted with by the women.

I see a different woman through the crowd, her back to me. Her skin is pale on a silk ivory dress with thin shoulder straps. Her legs are thick and also the color of ivory. I prefer her coloring, though I confess I am a little jealous of the ripped bodies of the younger men and women.

Then another woman in a simple white dress and wavy blonde hair enters through the doorway. She is being toasted for her presentation. She has been somewhere exotic and has just gotten back.

“I had to do that because they wouldn’t let me go on to Guatemala,” she says to the crowd.

The projector shines her slides up on to a white screen at the front of the room. It shows an architectural drawing with lines and points mapping the intersections of buildings of what may be an archaeological dig. I want to call out to her that I’ve been to Guatemala but it was so long ago and it would sound pompous.

Instead she comes towards me. She stands to my left against the window while the others in front admire her presentation.

I am aware of her presence, the whiteness of her plain cotton dress lit by the sun, her white skin. The blonde waves of her hair frames and partially hides her face as she tilts her head forward.

She holds up her right hand directly in front of her, as if to reach out to something. I reach out too, brushing the palm of my own right hand across the back of her hand. Suddenly I am overcome with a fear that my palm might be clammy, but she turns to me at a slight angle, her face still in shadow from her hair.

In the shade, I can feel her breath on mine as our lips part slightly to meet.

Leaves and Insects series by Qi Baishi, via WikiMedia Commons.
The name of the Yang Style 108 movement is Retreat to Ride the Tiger.

May 10, 2022September 1, 2022

Buying a Flat Opposite the Dinosaurs

I am barely awake as Elaine and her boyfriend lie next to me on a bed in an upstairs flat in Hanwell.

They are canoodling even though I have my hand on her bare shoulder. And he is a bit rough looking; droopy alcohol eyes, red pyjamas, not very attractive I think, but I can’t really judge her, it is her choice. I was lying there with Elaine talking things through, when he joined us and she turned to kiss him.

Image by rubiopinar from Pixabay, cropped

March 5, 2022July 31, 2022

The Woman in Blue

Elaine and I are going to a party and she is bringing a friend that she wants me to meet.

We leave her flat in the Rockhart Estate and walk along the top floor balcony to a urine stained stairwell. And as we step down to the next floor the woman appears. She has long straight black hair, black heels and bare legs despite the cool air. And she wears a deep blue silk dress, flared at the hem.

Elaine says, “Here’s my brother from across the pond.” And the three of us continue down together.

Photo by Matt Brown via Flickr