Darlin’, in the end, I've got you
as lover and friend
Funny how it goes
We'd be the last to know
We were made for each other
And from friends we became lovers
Keep on being my friend
Our love will never end...
The music is so distant...sweet Minnie's voice caressing the lyrics from very far away. The woman in his arms stirs and he softly strokes her sleeping head; she shifts lazily pressing closer to him. He luxuriates in the intoxicating nearness of her...plush and warm and, even through his slightly inebriated haze, so very arousing...against his chest, his thighs; from somewhere far away, the music...the late, great Minnie Riperton in her prime...echoes soothingly and he just stares up just...feeling.
The music ends and he just lies there silently. He looks down at the woman sleeping against him feeling...love, anxiety, lust, confusion...just feeling.
Her face brings a wandering: smiles shared softly in the night; laughter, feigned and not, shared, like conspiratorial children and lovers, generously in the daytime. Dreams revealed…coy lies told…innuendo playfully exchanged…passion freely indulged. She has always been quite a woman, but...
"Jimmy?" a voice calling.
"Jimmy?" her voice calling.
"Jimmy, are you all right?"
"...uh...yeah, Kathy, I’m good...are you okay?"
There is a soft, pregnant silence. They will make love now...or they will go for coffee. She groans in boozy discomfort and sits up.
They will go for coffee.
She turns to him, her eyes bleary; her smile lustful and apologetic at once. "Damn, what time is it?"
He doesn't speak.
"Jimmy...?"
Other hangovers and other women's voices play back as he watches her rise and make her way gingerly to the bathroom. She is Mary who never had hangovers...and Maggie who did and loved to wallow in them.
She is Connie lying deathly still and emitting a constant, rumbling snore against his neck as she slept off the previous night's revelry.
She is, quite suddenly and quite delightfully, herself, arms thrown across his shoulders, kissing him.
"Wake up, big guy," she says with a strangely provocative yawn, "it's time to go to bed." No coffee after all.
He smiles impishly. "Isn't that a bit at cross purposes...?"
"Not necessarily," she smiles back, poking him gently in the stomach. She jumps up and makes her way to the bedroom door singing, "...darlin’, in the end, I’ve got you as lover and friend..."
He smiles humidly, that's not Minnie but it sure sounds fine; he chuckles affectionately and lifts himself slowly up and, unsteadily, he follows in her wake humming,"...darlin’, in the end…"
“Lover and Friend”
words and music by
Riperton, Rudolph, St. Lewis, and Dozier
No comments:
Post a Comment