Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover…or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?
David Markson, Wittgenstein’s Mistress
It was a lifetime ago. I met her on my first posting overseas as a young Infantryman. She said her name was Orchid. We met in the market, I looked for hand-crafted souvenirs to send home to my siblings and her cramped stall had intricate carvings of animals made from crystals, bone, and rosewood. The attraction was instant, like meeting someone after years of separation. As my host walked me to each carving, I learned of the spiritual significance of each and how they influenced the owner’s fate. She told me a warrior’s mistress was her fate as her fingers toyed with the opal bird of paradise nestled between her breasts.
We slept in each other’s darkness and made love in our tangled thoughts. My reflection standing behind her in the vanity mirror caught her eye as she looked at a refracted ghost. It was Orchid’s ghost next to mine, she liked to see. It was how Orchid wanted to remember me after I left her to seek the razor cuts of my fate in the highlands of her country. I didn’t know I would never return.
For years, on the fetid jungle floor or the expanse of the high desert, I dreamed of Orchid. Death slept with me then, and sleep was my only pleasure. She came to me in my dreams and I let my caution die in her arms.
Quiet moments in the twilight of awareness brought visions of incense, white cotton, and the feel of silk as it flowed over her soft skin like rain on the window panes. The light in our room at sunrise crept across our skin in hues of sunburned wheat straw. Shadowed gold left our faces rich in each other’s gaze when we rested under the sunset.
Tracing the lines of her tribal tattoos with my fingers and feeling her breath quicken conjured the ache of desire and the fear of loss coming too soon. I can still smell the litsea by the open window. She took hot baths with the petals of Tiger Lilies. I recall the scent on her skin and the taste of honey and ginger on her lips, and I suppose this is why I think of flowers as a warrior’s mistress.
Author’s note:
The Warrior’s Mistress was one of my favorite short stories I wrote several years ago on my first blog. I thought this story would set the mood for more to come on this new blog, Hyperion’s Sky. What do you think? Have you ever lost someone you loved who stayed on your mind so much you dreamed of them?
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