The Cry Of Orgasm

The Cry Of Orgasm

She was a Mauritius woman

who sold spicy grocery at Leeds

open market and spoke demotic English

even on the phone that evening

she told me to come over for a chat. I won't tell you exactly where but

just know it was somewhere in Headingly. The lights were on to show me the window

of her house and her door. On all fours, furs erect, like a Yorkshire cat starved

of pudding for two years, I crept in. The door purred, closed quietly

so as not to wake the neighbours. She said her husband had a timetable

for beating her, so they were now separated. We watched Ruby Wax on the coloured

TV for three minutes then went upstairs, her blue sleeping gown spiralling behind her

like my lust. Up there, in that grey bedroom,

It was sweet, it was swell, it was juicy;

la crme de la crme, her olive thighs

squeezing honey on my ever-green cucumber

and, inch-by-inch, devouring it, enjoying it, relishing it. Dear Reader, I won't tell you a lie, it was sweet, I lay there, on my back, furs erect,

pawing the air, a lucky cat dissolving in ecstasy, crystals of sugar forming in my mouth, my brain, my heart. But just as the tremors were coming, the tremors of our earthquake, memories

of her husband rippled through her mind, and, suddenly, like an olive leaf, she wilted. Instead of a cry of orgasm, she swallowed

and sighed; her eyes scanning the room and

windows with fear. The fear got into me too

as she climbed off like a disheartened jockey

who had failed to win the prize at the races

While I lay there, an empty saddle, with no foot

In the stirrup and no kick at the side to spur me on. Since that day, the condom of our love

Has been broken. And now when I go to the market

I avoid her stall of spices and go to another

Laden with peaches and fresh strawberries

All of which are red