Her sadness, her longing to stay standing when the world is trying to pull her down. Her strength, which she keeps clutched tightly to her chest, for fear that it could slip away at any minute, leaving her empty-handed.
She’s trying, and I understand her; I don’t know how, but I know exactly how she feels. I feel the same things. That longing to leave everything behind and tell the world to just fuck off. The way that keeping up tires you out, just like trying to remember where or who the fuck you are. The way that some days, the only thing you’re aware of is how you’re not how you should be, not like everyone else. The way the world keeps turning, even when you’re stuck still. Life is moving on for everyone, despite its changes, but you just can’t move forward.
You just don’t feel like…you.
I know I shouldn’t, but I push the door open, and slowly close the gap between us – because even if I don’t feel myself, I can feel her.
I don’t know if she’s noticed me, because she doesn’t turn, doesn’t stop: she keeps doing what she was doing.
She lines up the mugs on top of the coffee machine, and I sit down on a stool opposite her. She doesn’t lift her gaze, doesn’t speak to me. She reaches under the counter and produces a bottle of beer, opens it and then hands it to me. I accept, taking a few sips – maybe a few too many – while she perches on the wooden counter, drinking her wine.
This is crazy. It makes no sense, there’s no logic. But it’s fucking enjoyable.
Her, me, and nothing to talk about.
The music keeps playing, filling the silence and masking our breathing, so light and quick.
She pours herself another glass as I finish off my beer.
But it’s not enough,
Fuck,no.
And she understands this, bending under the counter once more and handing me another bottle. I’ve not eaten anything since this morning, and I can feel the alcohol straight away, loosening my mind and my senses beyond my control.
Her perfume gets into my head. It’s the same scent as the other night in her car, mixed with the overwhelming smell of alcohol, food, cake, and coffee: a concoction of smells and flavours that I want to taste from her skin. With my mouth, my tongue. It’s a desire that I’m trying to tame, but it’s exploding through my body, like the fragments of a hand grenade.
The shards are everywhere.
They’re scratching, burning. They really fucking hurt.
But I don’t get rid of them. I want to feel them, lodged into my skin. I want to feel them all over.
I get off the stool and, without knowing what the hell I’m doing, I go behind the counter and step closer to her.
I place my hands down on the wood, next to her thighs. She looks down at them, then slowly lifts her gaze to reach mine; I lose myself in the vastness of her eyes, and one of the shards starts to lodge itself dangerously close to my heart.
I slide my hands down her legs, my control gone by now.
I’m touching her.
And I really want to.
I’m trembling – fuck, I’mtrembling– as if this contact had reawakened something within me that had been lost. But someone else has found it.
I watch her straighten up, and I place my hand at the small of her back. I pull her towards me, and she sighs onto my lips.
Her scent draws me in, like a drug, and I lean into her neck. I exhale into her skin, and watch her lean her head back, waiting for me to make the first move.
She must be drunk. Otherwise she’d never let me get so close to her, smell her. She’d never let herself give in to the longing she feels in her veins – and in my trousers.
I pull her into me and lean in.
My dick presses into her, hard and urgent.
She reaches her hands to my shoulders, sliding her fingers along my neck, up to my face. Then she looks at me.Reallylooks at me.
Her eyes are huge, shining. Full of life, expectation. Eyes that dream of a future together.
