Talking hands

I went through that entire metro ride, with a book in my hand, barely able to read a page.

I don’t know exactly when they materialized before me. I must not have noticed. My sensory receptors generally aren’t good picking up superfluous signals. That is why I don’t know if they came together, or if one of the two had come before and waited for the other. But what I do know, from the time I set eyes on them, is the magic that flowed between the two of them.

Two fair, thin hands, seemed to stem out from behind my book. Her right, his left. Clasped at the centre. Nothing extra-ordinary about that, considering many young things hold hands in public places. It was the chemistry, the silent talking between the two that got me distracted. And how!

I couldn’t hear what they were talking, their voices were deliberately muted, but their fingers symbolized the graphic pitch and frequency waves of their conversation. In the beginning, they only allowed their fingertips to meet. With the careful reserve of a much awaited moment. Sometimes holding back, to derive the final pleasure, of an impatient wait coming to an end. The penultimate thrill of meeting the beloved. Just a finger curled around the other’s little one, a teaser of a slide between unexpecting fingers, or a little tickle in the inside of the palm. Two palms greeting each other, with delight and confession, after a night full of sighs and longing.

The acknowledgment done, the confirmation of love received, the latent passion tested, the hands became more vocal. Her forearm became the entire length of violin strings, and his, the violin stick. He wrote symphony in a way that created waves through me. Lacing his fingers around the entire length on her forearms, the back of her palm, the insides. Following the intricate network of her venous mesh with the tip of pointer. Teasing her hand to twist and move exactly as he desired.

It must have moved her in some way, for I saw her inch in closer to him, urging him to move from light touches to full squeezes. Now he was a ceramist. Moulding his clay with his entire palm, stressing different parts of his hand at different times, to get desired results on the other side. Massaging with a lover’s hand. Honey-drenched. Not leaving a millimeter untouched. As though shaping up her very soul.

It went on for quite some time. His loving cradling of all sides of her forearms...meeting in a crescendo of tightly clasped fists. Fingers clutched so tight that their knuckles turned white, leaving no space, not even for vaccum. A living orchestra of the foreplay of hands, before meeting in a passionate consummation.

That is when I looked up to see their faces. They looked straight ahead, at the fleeting world outside. Hands still tightly held. Two young people, probably in early twenties. Similar looking. Aglow with love. That sight warmed me more than the sun falling on my back. I allowed my soul to hug theirs and return to me. I smiled and look down.

After a while, the hands returned to talking. And repeated the motions. The playfulness first, the caressing later, the impatient brushing, and the final fastening of undeterred fervor.

Sheer marvel to watch. To get immersed in their loving aura. To borrow some moments of light from their very source.