by Reece Jordan
And so it repeats itself to him.
Early summer: the beginning of July. They are at Julia’s place, sitting on a crescent of stone in the garden. The sun is out and the sky is that blend of blues, both soft and intense. Next to Ezra is a steaming mug of coffee with an illustrated chess board on it. A paperback lies open in his right hand, his thumb in the crevice between the pages, the spine resting steady on his fingers. Laying belly-down next to him in sunflower dress, Julia is completing a sudoku. Her legs are crossed and she’s describing figures of eight with her ankles. New shoes have crusted her big toe in a blister; and every now and then, usually when she’s worked out the combination of a difficult square, she suddenly lowers her feet and Ezra feels a subtle scratch of hard skin on his thigh. Things are calm. Apart from the birds and the occasional sound of Julia running a pen across her teeth, the garden is completely quiet. Ezra reads on.
[…] rare and rapturous was the sight of my beloved trying to quench the lust of her precious skin, leaving at first pearly, then ruby, stripes along her enchanting leg and briefly attaining a drugged beatitude in which, as into a vacuum, the ferocity of the itch would rush with renewed strength.
‘Dja fancy some water?’ Julia asks, tapping her heel on Ada’s spine. ‘I’m gasping.’
She springs up, gives him a full-lipped kiss, then makes her way towards the house. Taken back, Ezra opens his eyes and feels his pupils adjusting to see Julia as ballerina, her bare feet hot on the wooden decking –– tss, ooo, eee, ahh. She, too, has a mosquito bite. Just there on her calf, a rosy mound about yay big. With a little hop, Julia enters the shade of the kitchen and her body sighs with cold-tile relief. The distance between the stone and the kitchen isn’t far, so Ezra manages to watch quite clearly as Julia stands on tiptoe –– her calves tensed, soles crinkled like seashells –– reaching for a jug. He smiles on the crescent of stone. For a moment she goes out of view, affording Ezra a sip of his coffee; and then his head swims, taking in with tender ripples sunflowered Julia coming back into the garden, her squinted smile embraced by sunlight, her prancing on the decking. She gives him a kiss, then hands him a cold glass of water. Cucumber and lemon.
‘Someone looks happy!’ she says. Did you get to a juicy part of your book?’
‘Very juicy.’
She giggles, then begins to run her fingers through his hair.
‘It’s the first time I’ve seen you smile in ages. Not since the whole—’ she says, catching herself, and gives him another kiss. ‘But it’s nice. I’m glad to see you coming out the other side.’
They lie down, allowing the sun to fall on them for a moment.
‘I was just reading a bit about a girl’s mosquito bite,’ Ezra says eventually, stroking the mound on her leg. ‘How’s this one?’
‘Don’t do that!’ she shouts. ‘You’ve made it itchy!’
She bats Ezra’s hand away, then fixes her nails into her skin and scratches up and down, leaving at first pearly, then ruby, stripes. A cold wind from somewhere strikes Ezra’s cheek as a kind of orgasm escapes her lips.
Reece Jordan is a writer from South London. His work has featured in Alma Magazine, Falstaff Magazine, and Areo Magazine, where it was subsequently translated into Dutch and Portuguese.
January House Literary Journal 
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