You give me a glance, cast across the dim room, over glasses full of wine and punch, through conversations of oh, isn't business booming? and yes, we really must golf when the weather is better, under the fluorescent lights, switched off for the occasion of the holiday party. I meet your eyes when I feel your gaze, but I look away immediately. No, I don't know what to do with you. It's easier to mingle.
I sip and stroll, feeling like I'm skating across the surface of the party. I'm only here to shake hands and make nice; I'd rather be fucking. Thinking this makes me smirk into my wine as I make small talk with the head of some department or other. If only she knew.
So, when your hand brushes the small of my back and you whisper close to my ear to say, "I know what you're thinking," I find myself at a loss for words. Resorting to superiority, I merely raise my eyebrows at you, hoping my blush is lost in the dim light.
With a deft, "Excuse us," to my conversational companion, you take my hand and pull me toward a sliding door. It leads to a bare courtyard, paved with cement and decorated with a handful of plastic planters. As a nod the distant possibility that people might make use of it, there are two wooden benches, slightly rickety. The only light is the meager glow spilling out the sliding doors, and the courtyard is empty.
I feel as though I've left my voice behind in the party. Maybe it's continuing its mingling in my absence, inserting witty repartees into conversations on my behalf. But it leaves me at a loss for how to ask you what you have in mind. I fall back on raising my eyebrows again. You laugh softly, making me shiver.
You draw me behind you into a pocket of shadow, hidden behind one of the planters, obscured by darkness and foliage. I open my mouth to ask, but before I can form the words, your hand pulls me past you, and you push me up against the wall, so I feel the brick against my cheek and your other hand on my neck. "Shut up," you mutter harshly in my ear. "You don't really want to talk, anyway."