Eve’s bedroom was the only place in the world that Josh felt comfortable. The bare and slightly yellowed walls held a certain mysterious wonder for him. The key to the room’s beauty lay in its bareness and simplicity, like old Mexican monasteries with terra cotta tiling on the roof. Josh preferred to keep the lights off and the blinds cracked so that the afternoon filtered in through the window, making thin picturesque rays of light. They painted Eve’s body in long soft strips of sun. When she reclined on her side in the way that she did it reminded him of those nature documentaries that film a lioness lying around in tall grass all day, waiting for dumb animals with long legs to run by and get killed. She was all taut muscle under brown skin accented with bold shadows, a delicate but solid frame slowly rising and falling with each breath. Eve’s feral qualities manifested themselves in her face especially. That strange expression she had: a mixture of pain and pride, boredom and beauty. Her face was always beautiful, no matter what expression she chose to wear. Her sad almond eyes would stare through Josh and beyond into deeper things. This made him want to ask her what she was thinking about, but he rarely ever did. April’s answers never shed light on the mystery of her melancholy and oftentimes they seemed to push him further away. Now she lies with her back facing him, the contour of her naked body a soft watercolor landscape of hills and valleys. He feels like a tourist lying beside her for the last hour or so; absorbing her, analyzing her, thinking about her. She gazes into heaven and talks to the angels while he lies beside her and marvels like a man who has at last reached the end of a long holy pilgrimage. Share my worldDon’t you leavePromise I’ll be hereWhenever you need me near… Mary J. Blige croaks out her sultry ballad softly in the backgrou...
