What You Were Thinking

You weren't wearing a bra today. All through lunch I was aware of your hard little nipples pressing against your grey t-shirt, and I tried not to look, but they promised so much ripeness, so much pleasure, so much raw femininity. That's why I tried to make you angry. I hoped your passion would raise them higher, perkier, sexier. It worked.

I didn't want them too big. When you came in from seeing if there were seats in the garden you'd got cold, because they were so obvious. I saw one of the guys on another table check you out, and I didn't want anyone else to know our little secret, your little secret. I'm sure you could tell I kept looking, but you're probably used to guys talking at your boobs, so maybe you didn't notice. You thought it was just normal that everyone was staring.

You do have fantastic breasts. Under a bra, all breasts are squeezed and shaped and rounded into that hideous uu shape: they have no character. But, unencumbered, yours are fascinating, sloping shallowly down from your chest, and then gently curving outwards to the sweet nipple. Underneath, they curve gently back to your body, still mysterious under the grey cotton of your t-shirt. I follow the flowing lines of your figure, slender and magnificent, down the brushstrokes of your flanks, to your beautiful little buttocks, endowed with that same firm, gentle pertness of your breasts. Then come your legs, not yet sun-tanned or sun-burnt, and elegant in their porcelain whiteness. To strangers they are always closed, but sometimes they are gently parted like a lover's breathless lips, as if to taunt with possibility. Sometimes (I have seen you), a flash of milk-white inner-thigh ensures that some young taxi-driver, or waiter, or shop-boy, or student will fall in love with you.

Maybe you did that to me when first we met. Maybe it was that that made me adore you. It could have been anything, perhaps you brushed a graceful arm against me, or bewitched me when your pretty eyes rested upon me for a second too long, or it may have been you mouth, your neck, your feet, your hair, your fingertips: any part of you. I look into your eyes, and see them speak their own language. There are tiny words, feelings: an nano-language of languish and anguish and unsaid things. I want to kiss you. But I don't.

I can still see your nipples, straining at the grey cotton, and I wonder if you know. Perhaps you don't think we can see them: maybe you checked the a bathroom mirror still warm and steamy from your shower, before the morning walk and morning papers awakened and aroused them. I smile and look downwards. You smile and look back, that filthy, filthy smile that seems so out of place on your face, and yet so right. Of course you know. You probably spent hours before that mirror yesterday, trying every shirt in the ironing pile until you found one that was right, leaning backward and forward to see that they were gorgeous from every possible angle, too pert for any man to ignore. You are looking now for a swelling within my clothing, as I imagine pressing myself against you, running my tongue around and around and around the nipple, or sliding between your unenclosed breasts or half-parted legs. In that dirty smile I know you know exactly what you are doing, exactly what you are doing to me, exactly what you are doing to every man and lesbian who looks at you. I'd like to say I love you but I can't.

Maybe you didn't plan it. Maybe all your bras were whirling in the washing machine, and you tried to dress, feebly trying at the door but unable to interrupt the cycle. Maybe you got too hot, and wondered, just maybe, if you could get away with it today. Or you awoke and wanted to feel freer, less constricted. Maybe you've hurt yourself, a patch of sunburn on your shoulders that makes the strap too painful, so you stopped in a quiet corner of the park and struggled out of it, stuffing it into the darkness of your handbag, ready to retrieve when propriety demands it, or after the after-sun lotion salves your skin.

And if there's no bra, what else aren't you wearing. The grey shirt covers most of that little denim mini-skirt, but maybe there's nothing underneath. When you stood up I could see no pantie-line, no seams or creases out of place. I know you're the sort of woman who likes taking risks, but that skirt is very very short, and I know you have to be out all day. It takes only one careless leg-crossing, one dropped paper, one breath of breeze, one upward stretch... and some lucky guy sees everything. But you would never cross your legs carelessly, never stretch beyond your reach, and the puff-cheeked deities on the edges of old maps would never have the temerity to aim their breath toward you. If anyone did see, you would set upon them with that stare (you know the one), and they would be silent about it forever.

You have finished your lunch. We embrace, and I wish for a third hand to stroke your breast, to let you know I've noticed and I think they're wonderful. Instead I feel them against my chest, wishing for more nerves so I could sense more of your hardness and softness and heat. One hand slips down your back, and I wonder if I could find out, with a tiny lift of the skirt and a delicate fingertip reaching up to find cotton or lace or silk or skin. But people are watching and I know I can't. It shall remain a mystery, another unanswered question I was too afraid to ask. So many questions, so many regrets, so many unsaid things. Lunch again next week.