Her skin is the color of the dark rich earth and her clothes are the colors of fire. They dance about her as flames dance, reds, purples, oranges, sometimes a yellow or blue, the thin straps of her high heels lapping at her ankles, the slits of her skirts revealing her thighs and her blouses teasing him with brief glimpses of breast, memories of years gone by, childhoods unspent, primitive nights unsheltered. He longs for that imagined past, of fertility rites, of taking her naked in the fields, burying himself in her, the smell of the night air, of the promised rains, of the grain yet to grow, the sound of their grunting, crying, straining, shouting, striving for perfection echoing across the empty valleys, her breasts jiggling darkly, tantalizing, just out of reach of his hungry mouth, her mouth open, grabbing each breath, fueling her lungs to cry out again as her hips arch from the ground and buttocks slap back into it, creating twin round, gorgeous indentations in the almost mud, sinking, pounding into the earth as he sinks himself into her and slides out again, their eyes tuned to the contrasting skin tones, their ears tuned to the distant rumble of impending rain, to the coming rush of the wetness, to the drops that will pelt them, urging them forward, twisting moaning, face to face, lip to lip, tooth to lip, biting, drawing blood, tongues lashing, tasting, tasting the rain and the salt and the blood of the other, screaming together into the night the fierceness of their coming.

But for now he is content to watch her quiet breathing, the rise and fall of her hinted breasts, the slight smile that curls the corners of her lips, the vague flutter of her eyelashes. He is honored to wake her, to speak her name, to tell her it is time as the train pulls into the station. To speculate, as he speculates each morning on the way to work, what she dreams of, with that half-smile, behind those fluttering eyelids, with her hard nipples pressed up against her flaming blouse, against the Bible that slips from her grasp and lands open, face down, on her breasts, as she dozes.