I re-read your electronic messages a dozen times imagining your voice, the way your lips move, your hands stretching over your face, removing your glasses, rubbing your eyes. The notes allow me to imagine that we actually spoke, in person. Another chance to be near you, to smell you and watch your hands dance in the air as you talk, move close to me and then pull away.
When we're together, each gesture you make is exaggerated, twisted to satisfy my desire for your touch -- a simple move to brush dust from your knee turns into your long fingers reaching out to tangle in my hair pulling my head close to yours, your lips at my ear, breath moving in and out so loudly that I can't think about what I'm doing or the right way to respond and so each response is involuntary. Each movement of my body feels as if it's driven by your touch. Each fingertip you use to trace my jaw burns a flame that's hot and cold at the same time. Your fingers create thoughts and memories in my mind without my permission.
I watch your legs cross and uncross imagining the muscles below quivering and flexing. I tear my eyes away when it feels obvious that I'm staring. My cheeks burn with the arrested fantasy and I try to refocus on your words, your sentences, the conversation without watching your mouth directly.
I distract myself with papers, folders, a pen, a napkin to tear into pieces. Watching my fingers twirl a pen, I can see them, instead, trailing across your shoulders over your starched shirt feeling the stretched, smooth fabric over the heat of your skin. My fingers find their way down to your ribs and then waist where they pause to rest on your hips. The overwhelming and obvious need to press my body against yours is one I'm finding difficult to fight but also to imagine.
If I used your hips to draw us closer would you hesitate? Or worse, resist and pull back? Unthinkable. In my mind, you hesitate slightly before yielding to my desire to be closer to you, to be against you. Your hesitation translates to your need for me to be certain. To give me a chance to slow down the movement, to halt the eventual contact. But I won't, I can't. Once the shift is initiated, I have to have the contact; am mad for it. I feel the pressure of your chest, stomach, hips, pressed to me; a sigh escapes my mind through my lips and nose. The expressed breath moves the fabric of your shirt and I breathe back in slightly, losing myself in the smell of your skin.
There is very little light but it's not necessary to see when the need to touch and smell is so forceful. With your body against mine, I press my face to the cloth of your shirt. The buttons are small, unyielding disks meant to inject a small bit of reality. Is this what you want? What I want? Though the buttons are easily overcome, their boundary is obvious. Still, their warm, smooth surfaces are a welcome distraction to the crushing waterfall of your nearness.
My face is lost in the hardness of your chest, breathing deeply, my fingers explore your lower back, tips meeting briefly as they trace your spine, roaming, memorizing. They move slowly still waiting for your muscles to tense, for your tiny step backward.
At any moment, either of us could stop this, lend an ear to a suspicious voice cloaked in smug judgment, take that step back and lose the contact. And in thinking of this, I take a deeper breath, force these memories to sear themselves into my mind, absorbing every single second that I stand here, desperate not to forget any part of this.
I float back to the surface, your warm, soft words flowing around me still. I try to refocus on the conversation, the wall, any required responses that I need to offer. Have I been caught? Do you know where I am as you sit there, offering your friendship, your conversation? Can you read my eyes? Can you hear my heart beating differently? I realize that I'm holding my breath as I check your eyes and face for discovery. Am I safe?
I spiral back into what I can only hope is the future. I can feel your breath in my hair; your face is tilted down toward the top of my head as I stare into the darkened fabric of your shirt, my eyes wide open. Why am I holding my breath? It's as if I've willed my heart to stop beating; as if I'm trying to simply freeze the moment because I'm afraid of the next second, minute, hour.
I find my way back to you and release my lungs slowly, silently, hoping you haven't noticed. I re-focus on you; forgetting myself and my brain's unrelenting suppositions. Where are your hands now? Where will they go? Will they stop? When? At what point will you draw the line? It will have to be you who alters the course of this encounter. Whether subconscious or otherwise, I decided weeks ago that I would do nothing to stop this moment if I were to find myself lost here; caught between my dreams and reality, unwilling to force myself to realize on which plane I'm standing: one that's too enticing to give up, the other too undeserved to ask for .
My hands reach up toward your shoulders, the detail of your back quickly memorized and cataloged by my palms. I pause. To be able to remember this moment later, I need to know where your hands are as well as what you feel like during my own exploration.
As I was lost in my head, your fingers were dancing across my jaw burning an ancient pattern of longing where they trailed. I feel your hand rest under my ear, in my hair, the large, flat surface of your palm against the side of my cheek while your other hand still exploring my face.
Eyes closed now, I rest my hands on your hips. I concentrate on them, not pulling or pushing you, exerting no pressure on you while still maintaining contact. I re-focus on what you're doing. I am careful not to lose myself in the moment because I'm afraid I'll lose the memory and am desperate to ensure that the memory remains even if the touch doesn't.
Both hands are resting on my face, cradling my jaw line. The difference in height is obvious as I stand here with my eyes squeezed shut trying to guess what's in your thoughts, how we must look together, and the distance from your mouth to mine.
A slight movement. From where? Above me or below? Your hands remain on my face but something is moving. Panic bubbles up and I fight it back focusing on your flaming touch and its reality.
Your breath is closer, no longer on the top of my head but from the front. Warm, whispering and close. I fight myself to stay here, stay out of the future, out of my head. My skin surges with your sudden nearness and I can almost hear the crackling as I realize that you've arranged your long body to match my stance. I rise up, just slightly, on my toes. The movement connects our lips for a fraction as we both pull back in surprise and more than a little shock.
Quickly and at the same time, we both lean forward to erase the sudden, unbearable distance. Your mouth crushes mine while your hands grasp the back of my head forbidding any movement in the wrong direction.
