Siddhanth straddled a bough, clinging to a white-cottoned leg, his own twisted awkwardly. The empty, lilac evening buzzed with the lazy sound of insects.
'Siddhanth, you're about a foot off the ground! Why are you panicking?' she laughed.
'That, my friend,' he grunted and pulled on her skirts firmly, pressing his torso against the tree, 'is a very good question.'
'Are you afraid?'
'Of what? Trees?'
She nudged his ribcage with a bare foot. 'Heights.'
'I suppose. A little.'
Her eyes flickered from his head to his feet. Analysing him. His collision memoirs.
'Have you fallen?'
'I suppose.'
He wobbled dangerously and made a cracked, indistinct noise from the base of his throat. His black hands wrapped around her skirts.
Her white feet slipped out from under her cotton. Their soles balanced on his branch, and she kneeled in front of him. She placed her hands on either of his shoulders and steadied him. She didn't blink.
He saw Mary in her eyes.
'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?' she said.
He didn't reply. It was the moment he'd feared. If he moved, he couldn't stop himself, if he couldn't stop himself, It All would collapse, but without movement, nothing would exist outside his dormant, thought-filled, dreamful breathing.
She kissed him.
And just as he'd expected, as he'd known, the dreams crept in and he pressed himself against her. Desperate to touch what he could. To hold what he may. To kiss what he might. Although the taboo prevented it, he kissed her back. Her lips unfolded like a flower in the morning and he gathered himself into her. He felt his calves tighten around the tree branch, leaning forward, his chest against her breasts, a lock of golden hair caught between them. She broke away suddenly.
'I'm sorry,' her voice shook. 'I'm so sorry.'
'No.'
He touched her waist with an old melancholy. Her shoulders fell, and as if she had forfeited, she fell back into a kiss. There was no quivering, no fear. The time for that had come and gone. The realisation made the air unbreathable.
She led him to her room with the final hopelessness of a man being led to the gallows. The futility of their endeavours permeated everything. She lit a candle underneath a small stone statue of Christ and turned to Siddhanth. They undressed silently, knowing their fate. Why did they do it? It remained unspoken, unheard of, unholy. To others, of course. Only they knew the truth of It All.
Her nakedness was like nothing he had ever seen. Her body curved in perfect, mathematical symmetry, her white, round breasts firm, her legs crossed at the knee to hide herself. Shakti in her divinity. A blackbeaded rosary swung its crucifix at her navel. Leering.
What they did broke the boundaries that held their worlds.
They didn't know where to stop.
In any case, they couldn't.