Leah Lays London

Lovers observed April 10, 2011

They lie in the grass, spooned together. They are younger than I am, in their late teens, and a study in contrasts. Of the two, he is the slim and willowy one, a body constructed with a dancer’s build. His hair is ribboned in dreadlocks. He wears a colorful chapeau, an oversized t-shirt, and denim shorts. Her hair is straight, a long and Nordic blonde. She wears a bit of flesh on top of muscle, but it suits her constitution amiably. Her skirt extends to the calves, but it is split and not fully buttoned on the side. The size of her breasts makes her top swell.

We are in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris in the mid-afternoon, on a blanket beneath the shade of a tree. We have baguettes and fruit, chips, hummus, plastic cups, a seven Euro bottle of wine to share.

His foot kisses her shin. His lips kiss her shoulder and her neck. He gathers her top and shucks it up the tummy to just below the rise of her chest. He pours lovemaking into her ear, and she flushes a heated pink.

The girl nestles herself deeper into the bend of the boy’s chest and legs. Her hand reaches over the jut of his hip, and she slips it between his wallet and the inside of his pocket. His hand disappears into her top.

My friends laugh, but I am not paying attention to the conversation. I am watching the two of them, a few meters away, in a spot of sun. The back of his finger wiggles between her cleavage.

Somewhere behind us, a mother scolds her child in French. I focus on the chatter of my friends and join in accented American.

When my look returns to them, her skirt is bunched up. His hand has shifted to the outside of her thigh, where the contact is less blatant than before. The fingers tickle up and down between the line of the muscles. She covers his dusky palm with hers and scratches. His grasp on the smooth, pale skin is passive instead of possessive, though sexual all the same. She curls her bare foot against his and stretches her arm behind her to clasp the back of his head.

I imagine a partial erection stirring in his shorts. It encroaches between the hemispheres of her well shaped buttocks. I picture a threesome on the grass. I want to kiss her and kiss him and tongue them both after they have come.

It is time for us to go, however. Someone passes me the corkscrew I bought at Monoprix. We pack away our belongings.

I glance at the pair of young Parisians as I hoist my bag full of shopping. He whispers breathily, and she giggles. Silently, I wish them the very best of luck.