I shut the bathroom door behind me as quietly as I could, lifting the toilet seat absentmindedly. I pissed long and hard in Sofie's bathroom. I was in Sofie's bathroom.
Sofie!
After, I ran the water and pretended to wash my hands as I opened the vanity mirror. It was an old habit of mine, collecting information about people that others would miss. I knew nothing about her besides that she had amazingly smooth skin, looked incredible clothed and naked, and kept about a year's supply of Tums and Alka-seltzer in her vanity.
What in the world is Vagisil powder
? I wondered as I snooped around the cabinet. I figured it had been about twenty seconds, which is what I deemed to be reasonable time to run the water as if I was washing up, so I shut off the tap and walked back to her bed.
"Mmm, what time is it?" She didn't open her eyes.
"Sorry, did I wake you? It's about eight-thirty."
She rolled away from me and went back to sleep, leaving me with nothing to do but count the little moles on her back. She had a patch of dark-colored hair right beneath her shoulder blade and twenty-three dark moles that if I squinted my eyes just barely, looked like astronomical star shapes of Gemini or Taurus. I think she mentioned earlier that she was a Gemini.
Perfect
,
perfect, perfect.
The first time I saw her it was our freshman year in college at orientation. She had made me stare at her that day and every day since because of the way her hair hung down around her face, like a halo framing an angel. A fiery, red, burning, needing, wanting halo, around an angel.
A Halo around an angel? Great, now I'm starting to sound like a Hallmark card.
It only took her 3 years, two months and twenty days to notice me back, but she did notice me, and that's what mattered. She noticed me, and now I was in her bed, with her, counting the moles on her back.
Perfect.
I replayed the scenes of last night over and over again in my head, making sure to memorize every detail, every embarrassing little giggle, every sigh and every touch until it was engraved in my memory. A story I would keep inside me and maybe someday share with my grandchildren on my death bed. It would be poetry. It would be the stuff of legends.
She had noticed me for the first time, last night, at Moe's, the only campus bar that was worth going to. I usually stopped by there every Tuesday with some of my buddies for a few drinks to lubricate the rest of the week. And there she had been, sitting at the bar with her legs that seemed to go on for miles, smoking a cigarette and twirling her hair around her finger. She was surrounded by several other guys anxiously hanging onto her every word, mesmerized by her as I had been for the past three years, two months, and twenty days.
"Mike!" She called me.
Me?
"Mike! Come here! I never see you out!" She uncrossed her mile-long legs and got up to give me a friendly hug.
Me?
"Hey Madison! It's good to see you. How are you?" I stumbled slightly, I think, into her hug. I had already had a few drinks, but I didn't want her to think less of me now that she had noticed. The men around her stopped talking and just waited for her to resume her spot, eyeing me, trying to determine if I would be a threat to their goals.
"I'm grreeatt!" She half-sung. I could tell she had had a few also. "I can't believe you're here! You know, Dr. Fields pissed me off so much today. Could you believe he told me I was talking too much in class?" She frowned prettily. I could see the dark makeup shadowing her blue eyes and I think at that moment I became a man.
"I mean, I don't think I was talking too much! I had important things to say!"
She knew we had class together?
"Do you think that I was talking too much today?" She turned the full gaze of her shiny eyes on me and I stammered.
"Oh! Where are my manners? Here, this is John, Steve, and Phil. Guys, this is Mike, we have Philosophy together."
I shook their hands, and Phil grabbed mine a little too long and too hard. I could tell he liked her.
"Mike, would you like a drink?" Sofie touched my sleeve, sitting back down and taking a sip of hers.
"I'd love one, thank you."
I had come here with Peter, who was now standing in the corner by himself looking expectantly at me and half-cocking a smile. The next time I looked at him several minutes later he had left the bar and left me to my own resources.
This is the part where my memory begins to get a little fuzzy and I have to work hard to push past all the blackness. It all comes back to me in little snippets and flashes of time. I wish I could remember more than I am now, but just laying here, wrapped in her feather comforter, with her next to me, I am content to never remember anything more than this moment. I know that maybe in a few minutes, or if I am luck in a few hours, she will wake up and then she will remember everything – embarrassed me, the fuzzy night, the awkwardness that followed after. I wonder if she will think of me badly, if she will remember a different memory and see me with disgust. But I was here now. I tried to smell her hair without waking her. Lavender.
Perfect.
"You know, I think I have to tell you a secret".
"Oh, a secret? And so soon? But we've just met!" she joked, taking a swig of her drink. "Hey bartender, shots! Please!" she yelled across the bar. "What's the secret??" Her eyes were wide with excitement.
