Varanasi // Josh Kiszka

Tibet

You woke to the sounds of the temple bells chiming. A reminder of where you were. The day had already begun in earnest, sunlight creeping in through billowing curtains. And the snowy mountain peaks hiding behind each wave of the flowing fabric made you smile.

You peered over the mess of cotton sheets at the body sprawled out next to you. His bare torso flexed with his arms reaching above his head as he slept, much like a child would. His mouth a little open, his perfect teeth peeking out from beneath his lips. Curls unkempt, the remains of face paint streaked across his cheek bones from the day before.

The Tibetan festival of Saka Dawa had passed. You had found yourself caught up within it, dancing in the street amongst flights of birds released into the air. Pipers and drummers regaling the crowds with song and prayer.

Josh had let a little Tibetan girl paint his face, kneeling down to let her press the little brush to his cheek. Drawing from her the most tremendous smile. Drawing from you the most generous ache from watching him.

It had felt almost like a fever dream. Perhaps the past fortnight had been nothing more. A series of dreams woven to keep you unconscious. And when you awoke, you'd be back in your bed at home and Josh nothing more than a figment of your imagination.

Leaning over his sleeping frame, you lingered at his ear. Taking in the scent of him that was nothing more than him.

"Are you real?" You asked in whisper, feeling him stir beneath your touch as you brought your head to rest on his chest.

The drum of his heart felt real. The hand at your back felt real. And when you closed your eyes, you didn't fade away to distant lands. You remained. With him. Wherever he would go.

Even to this little room at the top of a building perched on the edge of a tiny village at the foot of the mountains. His refusal to stay in the city was absolute. He shunned the thought of it, the noise and the bustle. Josh embraced the quiet, the solitude of the villages. And you had found yourself unable to tolerate it too, favouring the meditative spaces Josh seemed to seek out everywhere you went.

You felt utterly changed.

"Are you real?" He replied sleepily, his voice a little deeper than usual as he began to wake.

"I don't know anymore." You sighed, feeling his muscles stretched beneath you.

He wrapped you up in his arms. Warm and tender. Squeezing your body a little as he kissed your brow.

"You feel pretty fucking real to me." He breathed, rubbing the tip of nose into your hair.

You loved these sleepy moments. Legs entwined and your arms reaching from innocent embraces to more fervent touches. He ran his palm down from your shoulder to the curve of your breast, running his thumb over your hardening nipple and cupping it into a gentle squeeze.

"Sometimes it feels like all of this is a dream." You confessed, feeling the bed move as he shifted his weight to his side, leaning his head against his palm as he looked over at you.

"Maybe it is." He shrugged, eyes moving down to the gooseflesh around your little buds. "But that doesn't make it any less real."

His fingertips made little circles around the colour of your areolas. You could see his tongue sitting at the tip of his mouth, ready to lick across the flesh of his lips hungrily as he watched himself playing with your body.

"You always know just what to say." You said breathlessly, turning on your side to face him.

"I haven't always been like this." He continued, tucking your hair behind your ear. "You caught me at my best, let's say."