“TULIPS IN SEPIA” by Jessica Jenney

She reached out to him, took his hand. Her fingers were like silk, her palms like velvet. She traced her finger along his lips, and wordlessly he rose to follow.

When they left the crowded room and stepped outside, it was as if the door had opened up to an alien planet; a place where the modern blaring of rock and jazz was muffled by the black blanket of the night, where the champagne bubbles in their glasses had escaped and floated up to the dome of the sky to latch onto the stars, where the ceaseless gossip of tongues had been drowned by the quiet conversations of the crickets.

He embraced her like a long-lost friend, her hair filling his mouth like silk, her ivory tulip of a dress brushing against him like velvet. The years that they’d let slip by, that had wrinkled their faces like the scars from thorns,were forgotten. She purred, filling his heart with gladness, her smiles like silk, her kisses like madness.

~Angreek87