Kiini Salaam - Ancient, Ancient

If there were a movie camera hovering somewhere in the skies, as Cori imagined there must be at this seminal point in his life, it would close in on the oak tree that sheltered the seduction. From a great distance, it would reveal the green silhouette before swooping through twisted, leafy branches to reveal Cori and MalKai’s heated embrace at the tree’s base. The camera would then pan over MalKai’s shoulder to reveal a brown moth resting on the tree bark and close in on the moth’s wings as it fluttered by, tickling the kissers and rousing them from their soul sucking.

The battle within Cori had been won. The mutiny was complete. Now, Cori had forgotten there had been any dissent, submitted completely to the lips that had devoured his fear, his indecision, his revulsion—and he couldn’t wait. Cori couldn’t wait to break down barriers and go where he had never gone before. To bring shame upon his family. To participate in an act he would never verbalize to anyone. To create a memory to file next to his afternoon pleasure trips with his cousin. Only this time, it could not be excused by age. Only this time, there would be no aunt to say, “Don’t worry, they’re just little boys.” There would only be condemning eyes and accusing fingers.

Arms encircled and crushed solitude from Cori’s lonely body. Lips soothed, and pushed tenderness through his teeth, down his throat. Hands left a trail of shivers along his passion-warmed skin. Cori had often found peace—or at least momentary joy—crushing some woman in his embrace. But he had never been crushed. Nor had he been seduced. Cori had never been the one with thoughts of escape up until the last moment.

Yet here he lay, under the boughs of an oak, ready to agree to anything this thick-fingered stranger suggested. A dog squeezed out a marathon of barks without stopping for breath. A painfully sweet bursting feeling split through Cori’s chest. His cells wanted to know the contours and textures of MalKai’s velvet skin, but his mind launched one last protest. He stood with his toes hanging off the brink of discovery and felt the intense desire to shuffle backward to a safer spot. His will faltered: did he really want to uncover the secrets he was coaxing out of hiding? Certainly he could live life without knowing what it’s like to be fucked under an oak tree by a velvet stranger. He took one more glance back to that point at the beginning of the road, but it was too late to turn back. This was happening now.

This is the now, Cori, and those are lips inching up the back of your neck. This is the now, and you don’t know the owner of those lips, you’ve just met him under this tree. You can’t take him home to meet your family or to your apartment to help you paint your walls. You don’t even know if you will see him again.

Ignoring his fresh whispers of doubt, Cori bravely turned his face to MalKai’s and opened himself under the caress of the breeze and the watchful eyes of the skies. It was all-consuming curiosity that made Cori unbutton the top of his shirt. It was vanity that made him think of all the women who had ever loved him. It was pride that made him consider how shocked they would be to find him here—half naked, crushed in a strange man’s embrace.

All philosophy went out of the door when MalKai attacked Cori’s lips with a finality that shook Cori to his bones. MalKai pressed his body against Cori’s. Cori’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, and his shoulders dropped into relaxation. He boldly began a grind that signaled he had left all questions and doubts behind—or at least swallowed them, so that they might resurface at a less critical time.

When Cori opened his eyes he was startled to find himself reclining on one of the wide branches of the oak tree. His eyes felt heavy like they did when sleep had a powerful hold upon him. His mind was as jumbled and confused as it was whenever he was abruptly disturbed in the middle of an intense dream. He saw what looked like large moth wings folding down into MalKai’s back. Under the intensity of the moment he could not focus on supernatural visions.

The birds must have been shocked: Cori and MalKai’s bare backs writhed and undulated as the sensations traveled up and down their spines. The squirrels must have been pissed: Cori and MalKai jerked like epileptics, shaking the branch and disturbing the tree’s peace. The ancestors must have nodded knowingly. Though muscles cramped and body parts twisted, pain was not felt. Not until the dam broke and the waterfall flowed.

One of the last visions that burned in Cori’s retina that day was the golden glow radiating from MalKai’s body. If he hadn’t just had his mind blown, Cori would have noticed that the glow was most intense where MalKai’s lips touched his skin. If he hadn’t been reclining on a branch twelve feet in the air, he might have realized that the glow was coming from him and that MalKai was drawing it out of his body. He might even have concluded that the entire love dance had been executed to render him so full and so yielding as to make MalKai’s nectar-collecting possible.

But Cori’s feet were not firmly on the ground, and his mind was far from its clearest state. Tracing the path of an after-sex glow was not at the height of Cori’s priorities. Instead he confused the glow of his own nectar with the setting sun and squinted in its glare. Through the slits of his half-closed eyes, Cori saw MalKai throw his head back and the moth from the tree land softly on MalKai’s lips. Cori slowly reached out a shaking hand to brush it away. Then as if on cue, hundreds of moths attached themselves to MalKai’s body. Sure that his eyes were tricking him, Cori rubbed them with a sweat-soaked hand. When the moths began to flap their wings, Cori stuttered some phrase of incomprehension. The moths took off with MalKai’s body, and Cori drew in a deep breath of disbelief. Overcome, he rested his throbbing head back and closed his eyes in exhaustion.

When Cori woke, it was night. He opened his eyes, and saw darkness; then his eyes dilated into focus, and he began to discern the cocoa brown ridges of bark. As Cori’s mind raced to orient his body to his surroundings, his eyes flitted around seeking something familiar to grab on to. His body welcomed him back into consciousness with the tingling sensations of a painful resting place; his skin greeted him with the gritty roughness of dirt. Cori sighed. His chest was tender where the bark of the tree had rubbed against it. As he turned his head upward, to the sky, his nose brushed the base of the tree and his ear separated from the earth packed around the tree’s roots. Cori sat up and supported his weight with a trembling arm.

The moon was low that night, low and heavy. The fingers on Cori’s left hand itched to touch it. With his hand outstretched and his arm fully extended, Cori felt a memory tug at his gut. He didn’t remember MalKai, but he remembered a feeling. He thought of his mother, but the minute she appeared in his mind, so did ten other women. He could not hold his mother in his mind without simultaneously thinking of his grandmother, his best friend’s mother, and that crazy woman who sat on the corner selling religious papers. It was as if the singular had been erased from Cori’s mind. His thoughts could no longer focus on individuals; he could only focus on groups. He couldn’t remember his job, his vendettas, or his debts. He couldn’t remember his closet either. Nations of communities had set up camp in Cori’s mind, and he began to work connections and create links between them.

He lowered his head in exhaustion. A night breeze blew past him, and his skin rose with goose bumps. He looked down and realized he was naked except for a pile of moth’s wings resting in his lap.