Sapphic Voices Romance

My Elly

God, how I hate the rain. I didn't use to. I use to watch the six o'clock news just for the weather report hoping for rain. Now, the rain only washes away everything but the memories. Memories of me and my Miss Elly, rain on the roof, lightning dancing in her eyes and the sweet smell and salty taste of her while we made love during the thunderstorms. The orgasmic vibrations soaring through her like the thunder shaking our old farm house. But that was many years ago. It seemed like it rained a lot back then.

Sometimes, if we didn't make love during the storms, we would take our coffee and blanket to the front porch swing and snuggle up to watch the light show.

My Miss Elly was always fascinated and turned on by storms. Maybe it was the danger involved. You see, we lived in Tornado Alley in the Heartland of America. There was more than once that we were almost picked right up out of our beds, as naked as a new born baby.

Once, a tornado took part of the roof off our house and we didn't even know it until later that night when we got out of bed to clean up some before we went to sleep. To say our love making was intense is an understatement!

That was one of those nights that my Elly was as intense about our lovemaking as Mother Nature was about her storm. We never heard any of it consciously.

Another time a tornado picked up our truck and threw it upside down on the chicken coop. We lost 17 hens and a good pick up truck. I didn't mind. We were insured. Anyway the coop was about to fall down, some of the hens were on their last leg and the truck needed a lot of work done on it.

We didn't hear any of that either. The hail on that tin roof was as big around as a 25 cent piece. It dented the hell out of the roof but we didn't get any leaks so I didn't worry about that either.

I never did know what it was with Elly and the weather but all I had to do was look at the sky and I would know what mood she was in at least seventy-five percent of the time.

In the spring she was the happiest person you would ever want to meet. Always a smile on her face except the spring her parents died three weeks apart. She cried and was hurting bad but she finally managed a positive attitude about it.

"Well, Papa isn't bothered by his arthritis anymore and all his other aches and pains." she told me the night of her daddy's funeral.

Then three weeks later when her mother died she told me, "It's best this way. Those three weeks were the longest they were apart in over sixty years. She wouldn't have been happy without Daddy."

I sure was glad that didn't happen in the fall. She was a Bitch for three months every year. There was nothing anybody could do to please her. I just kept my distance, except during the storms, and we made it through 28 falls. Actually it was just 27 falls, 27 winters, 28 springs and 28 summers. We met in the spring and she past on beyond her earthly bonds on the first day of Fall, September, 1990. We met in the spring of 1963. I think that math's right. When you get to be my age, your memory is a joke and not a very funny one.

I can't remember shit anymore. I bought myself one of those personal pocket recorders and forgot to record messages to myself.

When we met I was in my low forties and my Elly was in her thirties. Talk about a good looking woman! Whew! She made wildflowers look ugly but she sure could grow them. That woman had a thumb as green as a cat's eyes. Me, I can kill cactus. She cussed me more than once for messing in her gardens. But that is how we were different and that's probably what kept us together, the difference. She was soft as a ball of cotton and I was as rough as a dried up corn cob. She was bashful and shy. I was real outspoken, never met a stranger. I embarrassed her more than once speaking my mind.

If I voted democrat, she voted republican. Most things I liked she hated.

But Lord, how that woman could love. I never had the first doubt about her feelings for me. She showed me all the time in hundreds of ways. You'd think after all those years there wouldn't be any affection left but that wasn't at all true. She never went to sleep without kissing me goodnight and telling me she loved me. That's how I woke up every morning with her kissing me awake. Believe me, that is the most wonderful way to wake up every day of your life.

She wouldn't let us go to sleep if we were still mad at each other. One time I would have hairlipped the Devil before I gave in so for three days she kept us awake because I was still pissed about something that was probably stupid to begin with. I finally gave in from exhaustion. By that time I would have apologized to the Devil for not sinning enough just to get some sleep. We slept for 18 hours. She kissed me awake!

After a few years we didn't make love as much when it stormed. I guess we grew past that phase but we always snuggled in the swing watching the storms or we snuggled in be with the curtains open so we could watch Mother Nature's fireworks until we fell sound asleep wrapped around each other. We slept cuddled up to each other every night. If one turned over, so did the other.

Once she went to take care of her sister who had gone through some pretty serious surgery. She was to be gone a week. She was home in four days. Neither of us slept worth shit those four nights.

We really had the perfect relationship. Want to know why? Once we got past the physical part that dominated it for a long time, we woke up one day and realized we were the best of friends and really "liked" each other.

I had never before taken the time to like who I was with. When I look back on it now, until Elly, all my relationships were based on sex. I thought I was happy but now that I look back on it, I wasn't happy at all. The only satisfaction I got out of it was sexual.

My Miss Elly was my life. Without her I really don't have anything to live for. No kids, the dogs and cats are long gone and I quit raising any kind of animals.

After she was gone, it was months before I could sleep in our bed. You see, she died in her sleep curled up in my arms. I woke up that morning curled up behind her as usual with my arms around her. One under her pillow and one over her pulling her close to me. She felt cold so I pulled the cover up around her and pulled her closer to me. It struck me as strange that she didn't move any. All of a sudden I realized I couldn't feel her breathe. I whispered her name and told her I loved her. Still nothing! It hit me that she really wasn't breathing. I shook her and called her name outloud. I turned her over on her back and my world collapsed. I knew she was dead. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her forehead, cheeks, nose and lips telling her over and over how much I loved her. I think I expected to love life back into her. I don't know how long I laid there holding her, talking to her and sobbing. That was the first time I had cried in many years. I hadn't had a reason to. I've cried a lot since then. I pray occasionally now.......to my Elly. I tell her how things are going. I scold her for leaving me alone and not making God take me with her. I guess she hasn't been there long enough to have any clout.

I talk to her just like she was still here. I know she is in spirit if not in body. I know she wouldn't leave me totally alone. She knows I never could take very good care of myself.

Sometimes the wind catches the screen door and it sounds exactly like my Elly did coming into the house so I know she's still here looking after me.

I can tell I won't have to wait much longer to see her again. Don't ask me how I know it....I just know it!

Maybe my Elly finally got some clout!

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