Leather Shields

To the moments we never forget.

The room is frosty at 5:00 AM in New York City. My leather secures me from the frigid devil nipping at my toes and the edges of my ears. I am stumbling along the spiral staircase, clumsy and disorganized. I can feel his hands acting as my only guidance. Those hands are the pillar allowing me to levitate above the bare concrete. I plaster myself against the only warmth in the room. I can smell the emotion, the sexual tension is flowing from the ends of my hair, rippling off the walls and outlining our silhouettes. I can taste the weakness on my tongue lingering behind the traces of vodka. The desperation was pouring through my skin.

I was unstable, yet placed my boots neatly on a table. The gold cuff lacerating my arm joined the small army of my belongings. Everything had its place, in an unfamiliar place. My bareness accompanied the terror. Yet, somehow that terror electrified me. The bones of my body felt brittle, while my muscles relaxed into an abyss of h and comfort. I was safe without knowing what that meant. A moment of trust done right.

I remember his skin. That soft skin, melting into the darkness of the room. As a child I was always afraid of the dark. I was afraid of the unknowing creatures and thoughts that darkness brought out. In these moments, I have realized that child no longer exists. In that darkness I felt clothed and I became scathingly hungry. Perhaps it was the breath caressing my collarbone, my shoulder, my elegantly long fingers that left me burned. I was scorched by what was sensible and what I desired. Sensibility dies alongside lust.

It is now 10:00 AM in New York City. The same beautiful darkness wakes me, the leather lays lifeless on the ground. The leather I wear is my protector- a stiff shield from those attempting to grasp what they are not yet ready to understand. My pants dig, stretch, and collide with emotions never leaving me after nights of pure sweet darkness.